Naming the animals

Sometimes it can be difficult to know how much of guiding my life is up to me and how much is up to God. How does my own free will and effort factor into receiving God's grace and allowing God to guide my life? We are shaping this together; who does what?

The other week at youth group, we were talking about the ways in which we are co-creators with God, discussing how in the second account of creation, God creates the animals and then brings them to Adam to see what Adam will name them. God delights in Adam's imagination, thoughts, and desires, evidenced by the fact that whatever Adam decides to call the animals is what God also calls them.

Erin Urhahn, one of the incredible young people I am privileged to get to know and grow with, made an analogy so wise and clarifying that shed new perspective on co-creating life with God. She spoke about being a smarter student at school who sometimes gets paired with someone who isn't as smart and is seen as not really being able to contribute to the project. When this happens to her, Erin says she sucks it up and surrenders to the fact that she is going to have to do the whole project herself without any help from the other student who isn't really capable. Anyone who has ever been in this situation can relate.

Then she flipped the analogy: in her and God's relationship, she likened God to the smart student and herself to the one everyone thinks is incapable. She realized how hurt she would be if God told her she didn't need to contribute and how useless she would feel, like she didn't have anything of worth to bring.

She realized that in school, she could start being more like God in these situations, drawing out the goodness in her project partner, asking for their input and ideas, and helping them to believe in their unique ability to contribute something of worth to the end goal. She came away excited about this prospect, to put this new approach into action.

I felt excited about it, too. Rather than living it out in any team projects I have coming up, however, her words have given me a new way of thinking about how God wants me, my ideas and my unique perspectives. God doesn't necessarily have an answer he is holding over my head, waiting for me to figure out; God wants my honest input, direction and creativity as we name the animals that are a part of my world.

This is so hopeful to me. We all know the best team projects are the ones in which each person contributes their unique perspectives, ideas and expertise; if this is how the best human teams interact, this surely, too, must be what a well-ordered relationship with God looks like. Both of us there, conversing and working and giving feedback to create the best version of a life.

It's not me doing all of the work, and it's not God doing all of the work. It's a collaboration, a relationship, a friendship. There is no map for it, except for Jesus, who tells us he is the Way. And that's pretty freeing and exciting.