Divine Collaboration

We often talk about Divine Intervention, but I don’t think that is God’s typical m.o. One of the very most important things to God, and one of the things that should be the most important to us, is our agency. Faith is a principle action. If we want to learn doctrine, we must first do His will.God is much more of a collaborator than an intervener. It wasn’t Divine Intervention but Divine Collaboration when Moses waded into the Red Sea. God said, you start walking and I’ll get the water out of your way. It was Divine Collaboration when the Brother of Jared presented the stones he had made to the Lord to fill with light. Divine intervention would have been God handing out glowing rocks to the Brother of Jared with no thought or effort on his part. If we are sitting around waiting for God to intervene, we can keep on sitting. God multiplies our efforts and infinity times zero is still zero. I know that when we are in danger, or are completely overwhelmed, or at our wit’s end, of course God as our Loving Heavenly Father will intervene, but it is much better to go through life with God as a constant collaborator rather than as a last resort. In Lehi’s dream, it was the ones who held fast to the iron rod continuously, who collaborated with God day in and day out, who made it to the tree and stayed there. The ones who would cling to the rod whenever they needed divine intervention hadn’t built up the kind of faith and spirit of cooperation to withstand the scorn and ridicule that came. God does not want to wait until we are in trouble before we reach out to Him for Divine Intervention. He wants to work with us right from the beginning. Rather than panickedly praying for Divine Intervention in our direst need, we are far better off praying for Divine Collaboration from moment to moment.