The Partnership

A partnership is always formed in order to attain a known objective, such as providing a service to the public with some benefit for the partners. 

In our religious life we too are invited to partner. In fact, throughout time, Biblically, every patriarch had a partnership agreement with God to achieve some objective. They were called covenants.

Today, we can all have our personal covenants with God as well, for our personal needs or for someone else.

There is an old hymn with  the following verse

"I can only spread the sail;

Thou! Thou! must breathe the auspicious gale.”

There is deep meaning here about a partnership or a covenant between us and our maker, creator and keeper. We must do our part and God will do His. Don't forget, man was created to partner with God in achieving Godly objectives of keeping His world beautiful and maintained and while we endeavor here on earth, we need the driving force to come from God.

Here are a few pointers for a successful partnership or a covenant: 

A. Each of us have been given some ability and which is used to achieve Gods objective for our life. Psalm 37:5 where we are advised to let God be in charge. (A significant part of "walking humbly").

B. Success is achieved through our human efforts aligned with Gods will. So it is a good idea to keep checking if our life objective is in sync. One way to do this is through prayer and meditation, closing out the "noise" of this world to keep still a d hear him when He speaks to us.

C.As partners, we too must commit to invest! we can't just keep asking and taking. We must invest in a relationship with Him to know and fellowship with him. Get rid of irritants to that fellowship; control anything that can disrupt our time and fellowship with God, be it our jobs, bad habits, bad time management, or simply laziness.  

Notice the people of Scripture that lived in partnership with God:

o Noah’s partnership with God saved his family from the Flood and preserved the human race.

o Abraham’s partnership with God also made a global impact. His faith secured the Promised Land for the Hebrew people and brought spiritual blessings to the nations.

o Jacob’s partnership with God brought him tremendous wealth even while laboring with his conniving father-in-law.

o Moses experienced “face to face” fellowship with God, and in so doing liberated two million Jews from Egypt (Deut. 34:10).

o And Joshua secured a military alliance with God that conquered the Canaanites and settled the Hebrew tribes into the Promised Land. Joshua’s partnership with God was so phenomenal, that without earthly assistance, the angels flattened Jericho’s impregnable walls!

In our personal covenants, we ask for our needs but what does God expect from us as an individual? Micah listed out the three principles of what God asks of His people: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with Him. After all, blessings come with responsibilities.

These three are not in isolation but based on Biblical principles laid down in the Old and New Testament.

When we want our sails to be filled with the heavenly gale, we need to be sure we have the sail up. Do not miss the gale for want of preparation for it.