Daily Devotional August 18 - Co-Creating With God

"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ." Philippians 4:6-7

My favorite subject.

To be careful for nothing doesn't mean not to care about people or things or situations. But it does mean not to be in angst about it or not to resolve it by your own power. Be careful for nothing, paraphrased; "don't try to resolve it on your own merits or power; Don't fret about it and let it eat at you when you could lay it down and allow God to work in it and through it and change your situation."

God wants your problems. God is asking you to pray about it and supplicate, (earnest prayer with deep conviction) and thank God for allowing you to put this burden on Him. Did you get that. God wants you to thank Him for taking care of your burden in advance to getting your answers. That's trust. That's faith. That's belief. That's co-creating with God. You have a problem or need. You do what you can to fulfill its requirement. All the while, while you are doing what you can, as you pray to God and ask for Him to get in the middle of your situation, as well as thank God for His supernatural intervention (which is taking place before, during and after your problem has been resolved), God is moving on your behalf. Of course it is hard to see the hand of God at work sometimes, but never doubt that God is working on your behalf to resolve your situation/problem/dilemma.

Let's just say that you find a way to remember to pray to God about your situations and thank Him along the way. What comes to you as a free gift is the peace of God. Peace in your heart when the floor is falling out from under you; Peace in your heart about the outcome; Peace about your future. God wants you to learn to co-create with Him in this way.
You:

• Recognize your issues
• Give them over to God, thoroughly
• Pray about them
• Do what you can toward an equitable end
• Know in your heart that what you see is not the whole story
• Know in your heart that God is working on your behalf
• Thank God while you are passing through the fire
• Thank God at the end of it

God:

• Has already gone before you, before you had the problem to make a way for you to solve the problem/dream/request/situation
• Hears your prayer as the invitation to co-create with you
• Gives you life, strength, energy, tools, power to do what you can
• Works out all the details so that in fulfilling your problem/dream/request/situation, it is perfectly intertwined with all others to benefit everyone
• Accepts your thanks as an offering
• Puts a final stamp on your situation as completed under the hand of God and files it away, not to be revisited without your express permission

After you have come through, God is so good that He makes the entire process available to you over and over again, as much as you need God's intervention throughout your entire life. It's so good that it passes all understanding. Why would God do that for you anyway? Because God's love for you is so great it cannot be understood or written about with any real accuracy.