God Invites Us to Help Him, Even Though We’re Not Perfect

If you have children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, you have no doubt been asked to color.  Crayons, markers, doesn’t matter, just something to add color to a coloring book or computer printed picture. Kids don’t really care what you color, they just want you to do it WITH them.

A while back my four-year-old granddaughter invited me to the table to color with her. She had all the crayons and markers lined up and she had a selection of coloring books to choose from. I picked a book and flipped through the pages to find a picture that wasn’t already colored in. She did the same and we settled into a quiet conversation while we colored together.

As he colored, she kept looking over at my picture. Finally, she scooted her chair closer to mine and held her marker above my picture. She said, “Grandma, I could help you color that part right there. It will be so pretty!”

Now some of you are cringing at the thought. You are working on this masterpiece and YOU want to finish it yourself.  Be honest, you know you do! I did too, for a split second, then I remembered it wasn’t about some simply drawn picture that I wanted to finish, it was about spending time with my little one and letting her think she was helping me.

Suddenly, God showed me a picture of how He sees the very same thing in us. He has a perfect plan that He can accomplish without help. He doesn’t need to even think about how to do it because everything He does is perfect.

But He looks at us and pushes his coloring book closer to us and says, “sure, you can help.” He already knows we won’t do it perfectly, we will color outside the lines, we will make mistakes. But it’s okay. He just wants us to do it with Him because he loves to spend time with us.

God the Father invites us to help Him manage His creation. He lets us participate even though our efforts aren’t perfect. He loves us and welcomes us into His work without hesitation.

C.S. Lewis said, “He seems to do nothing of Himself which He can possibly delegate to His creatures. He commands us to do slowly and blunderingly what He could do perfectly and in a twinkling of an eye. Creation seems to be delegation through and through.”

God wants us to join Him in building His kingdom. He’ll let you color His picture and even supply the markers.

“He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.” – Titus 3:5 (ESV)

“He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.” – 2 Timothy 1:9 (CSB)