I've been fiddling around with this idea for a little while. It goes like this:
God doesn't want to command us in all things, but He wouldn't mind collaborating.
Seems sort of, I don't know, disrespectful. Right? Thinking we know enough to be able to collaborate with God. HA!
Although, my six-year-old is intelligent enough to collaborate with me on some level. I love seeing the unique manifestation of her heart and mind when we work on stuff together. It's pretty boring for me to just tell her exactly what needs to be done all the time. That isn't really her at all if she's simply my satellite.
She loves to draw. She loves to draw axolotls. I asked her to draw me an axolotl once because I thought it would make me happy. The picture isn't what would make me happy, though. I don't particularly care for aoxolotls. Rather, it is discovering her interpretation, expression, intention, and design that flowed from the principle of "axolotl" that would delight me. The axolotl drawing is really just a medium.
Get it?
Before I had kids, I viewed God as more of a commander, and I was just the drone that needed to know exactly the right thing to do so I didn't screw up the perfection that is God's command with my stupidity. But, anymore, I see God's commands as mediums for growth, expression of beauty, creation, and collaboration with the Divine.
What if there wasn't a "right" way to do the Statement of Principles document? Or the provisional women's document? Or etc., etc., blah, blah, blah [insert task here]. What if there are just correct principles, and we can choose how to use them to govern ourselves, and the expression of that is as unique as our circumstances in history? What if it isn't "adding to and taking away" when we collaborate with each other and with God on how to best implement those principles for our current circumstances? This may just provide room for structure on the one hand, and freedom on the other. There's room for experimentation, mistakes, learning, growth, change, revisiting... creation!
If God points to a Home Depot and says to me, "See, here, there is material with which to build. I'd like you to build a treehouse." Perhaps that's all the command I need, and He doesn't need to command me in every particular. Perhaps He wants to see what I come up with. What plan I develop, what tools I think are necessary, what constraints I place on the project, whether or not I ask others to help, and if I ask others to help, how we decide we want to interact during the project. Perhaps I work until I get stuck, and then He works the problem with me, visiting from time to time to instruct me further and provide intelligent solutions, here a little, there a little. Perhaps we collaborate. Perhaps...
I dunno. Words fail me. The thought isn't all the way formed. I can also see this idea turning into some weird hippie, morally loose, confused, chaotic, shit-fest. But I feel something true in there somewhere. I mean, what made Christ so awesome was that He embodied the word of God perfectly. But I also wonder if, theoretically, ten saved beings can embody the word of God perfectly... differently. I mean, do we really think Christ and the Father are carbon copies? God forbid. Maybe to be exactly as Christ is has more to do with underlying principles than it does being a mindless drone.
Maybe God would have us build a family that is as delightful and surprising to Him as it would be to us.
Maybe...
