Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
You may feel alone, but you have a purpose, and that is to co-create with God, so lets L.O.F.O.
Recently a friend asked me to pray for them. It caught me by surprise, but as I listened to the struggle they were facing, I felt it was a privilege to listen to the coalface experience they were inviting me into. I held them and prayed. Later they said it made all the difference. I co-created with them.
What a privilege we have to be able to co-create.
We use the word co-create sparingly, but it means working with someone to create something. So there is an invitation to a partnership.
I received an email the other day with the question. ‘Why won’t God let me die’? My immediate thought about their pain was that ‘God needed them for something.’
Why would God need us?
The God of infinite power that can speak a universe surely doesn’t need us, but God does need us, and there is an invitation to co-create.
We co-create with God.I look at the garden and see a rose I planted years ago. It’s flowering now with generous white blooms.
I prune, feed, and water it, yet I do not control this beauty. I have limited power over its glory.
It will most likely be there in fifty years, blessing someone else. I am co-creating with God for future generations’ enjoyment. I am simply a steward of the now for the hope of the future.
The early church leaders Paul and Apollos co-creator with God.
Paul co-creates words in a letter to his friends in the city of Corinth.
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each.
For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9
I don’t think Paul was suicidal, but I do believe Paul desired to be somewhere else, and that somewhere else was to be with Christ.
If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.
I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.
Since I am convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in faith, so that I may share abundantly in your boasting in Christ Jesus when I come to you again. Philippians 1:22-26
I believe Paul carried a heavy load of shame and guilt for how he treated the early church. It was his ‘thorn in the flesh,’ but God had not finished with him yet and desired to co-create with him. Read – Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh and its Meaning for You.
It was ‘fruitful labor’ that held him firm. Those times when he was able to co-create with God and others and see something good grow from a seed into a flourishing rose bush, filling God’s world with beauty.
We co-create when we L.O.F.O. and act on them.
We L.O.F.O.L.O.F.O. is an acronym for Look Out For Opportunities.
It’s straightforward. We look for opportunities to co-create with God. Little things.
- Picking up a piece of rubbish and putting it in a bin.
- patting someone on the back and saying well done
- Changing someone’s flat tyre.
- Sowing some seed
- Buying a friend a cup of coffee
- Sharing a photograph you have taken of a little bird to the world via social media.
- Adding a dollar into the churches collection plate
- Sweeping the floor
- Mowing your neighbour’s lawn
- Sharing your thoughts through a blog post
This list could go on forever, but its little things done with love help co-create this world. It’s the antidote to suicidal thinking.
It’s the thinking that this world was created out of and for – self-giving love.
Quotes to consider
- Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Mother Teresa
- Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours. Teresa of Ávila - Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. Anne Lamott
- Nothing digs ditches like shovel fulls of dirt. Rick Hanson
- Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Joshua Heschel
- Faith is not the opposite of doubt. Faith is the opposite of certitude. Where you don’t need to be certain to be happy. If you can’t go there, you’ll never be happy because you’ll never get logical certitude. If you’re waiting for 100% certitude, you’re never going to be happy. Richard Rohr.
- To accept some degree of meaninglessness is our final and full act of faith that God is still good and still in control. Richard Rohr
- How does it feel to be a co-creator with God?
- How can you incorporate L.O.F.O. into your daily life?
- What does ‘fruitful living’ look like for you?
Barry Pearman
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