Look at these flowers! Aren’t they beautiful?

I am not much of a flower-identifying kind of guy, but if I were to guess, I’d say these might be called “mini-sunflowers,” or something like that. (There is also such a flower as a Black-Eyed Susan, isn’t there? Maybe that’s it!)

All I know is… they struck my fancy and caused me to pause in my steps, snap this picture and say a quick word of thanks.

But who was I thanking? 

God? 

The homeowner who assembled this tasteful, sidewalk-side area?

Both?

My faith declares God is, DUH! the author of ALL life. “In him we live and move and have our being,” as it says in Acts 17:28. And I can’t help but believe that “we” includes plants and animals. Those flowers don’t EXISTwithout God.

But what about the homeowner? You know, the one who bought these flowers at Home Depot, excavated a nice planting area, dug a hole, added some fertilizer, planted the flowers, and then kept them watered every day. Doesn’t he/she deserve a mention on the credits for this random moment of beauty?

Yes. I believe they do.

And then I stopped and thought: If that is the way it works in this garden I just passed, WHAT IF this is also the way the world is supposed to work? WHAT IF God intentionally designed the world to operate through the mechanism of divine/human collaboration?

Crazy thought. Right? I mean, in order for God to be worthy of that lofty moniker, all the “omnis” have to be in place… omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omni-whatever. Considering all those “omnis,” how could any God-believing, God-fearing person posit the crackpot notion that God “depends” on humans for ANYTHING? 

• Did God truly NEED that homeowner to assemble that flower display?  
  
• Did God really NEED Moses to turn the Nile into blood, or bring about any of the other nine plagues?
  
• Did God NEED David to kill Goliath with his slingshot and thus defeat the Philistine army?
  
• Was Paul really a necessary agent to spread the Gospel around the Ancient Near East world in the first century?
  • I mean, couldn’t God (being sovereign and omnipotent and all), just mystically hypnotize everyone into believing in Jesus?

Of course. God could have done ALL those things with a snap of God’s divine fingers.

But he didn’t.

God (very much on purpose, I’m convinced) created a world that functions best when it functions by divine/human collaboration. God does God’s part. Humans do our part. And then, before you know it, God’s kingdom comes… on earth as it is in heaven.

Great plan, right?

Except for that one little fly in the ointment… the fly known as SIN. That consistent, pervasive human proclivity to miss the mark… time after time after time. 

Despite God’s patient teaching… despite God’s unconditional, forgiving love… despite the hellfire and brimstone polemics of the prophets… despite the God’s glorious incarnation as Jesus… despite the direst consequences… we humans keep screwing up. We continue failing to hold up our end of the Cosmic Collaboration bargain. 

We are like that team member… you know, the one you assign to research the mating habits of platypuses who shows up on the day the group project is due, smiles sheepishly and says, “Sorry, guys. I forgot!”  

Only a thousand times worse.

I often wonder why God doesn’t finally get fed up TO HERE! with me and my sinfulness, throw the dish towel angrily down to the floor and say, “OK, THAT’S IT! I’m DONE! From now on, it’s MY WAY or the HIGHWAY! I gave you clowns the gift of free will and THIS is what you’ve done with it??!! What an ungodly [pun intended] MESS!!”

But God doesn’t do that. As irrational as it seems to you and me sometimes, God continues handing us back the car keys… even after we have totaled his priceless vintage T-Bird. 

Thank you, God, for continuing to flawlessly do your part. Thank you for forgiving me when I drop the ball with all you have placed in my hands. Prompt me, guide me, and help me to remember to treat my earthbound brothers and sisters a little more like you treat me.

Abundant blessings;