THE TEAM OF GOD AND YOU:  Nehemiah 4:9: “And we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.”   Our Christian walk should follow the Biblical principle that we can’t look horizontally for what we will get only vertically, and we can’t wait vertically for what we have already been called to do horizontally.  Some people wait for God to do for them what he has already called and empowered them to do.  The Christian life is a cooperative team effort of God and you, and in that order.  Nehemiah is one of the greatest examples in the Bible of how we should live knowing that God will do his part and expects us to do our part.  Nehemiah always prayed to ask God to do his part and was obedient to then do his part in the cooperative effort to achieve what God wanted done.  I know people who do not follow this important principle of how God works.  Some will say that they have given the matter to the Lord and just wait on him to act without doing what God has called them to do.  What if the Children of Israel had not taken the first physical step to cross the Red Sea or the Jordan River?  They would not have accomplished God’s plan for them or received his promise.

 It is no different for us and we must be willing to be a cooperative team member with God to achieve what he calls us to do.  This is just another reason that God gave us a free will to obey and trust him.  Nehemiah asked God to do only what God could do.  He didn’t sit down to just wait and hope God’s work got completed.  He did his part of the assignment.  The enemy deceives many people into thinking that they do not have to do their part and the results are not good.  My wife and I have four high-achieving grandchildren who are involved in many school and life activities.  They are all Christian young men and women learning the principle in our Scripture this week.  They pray and know that we pray for them to find what God wants them to do in every circumstance.  After an achievement, my wife often shares this with them, “God and you make a good team.”  They learn that God will do His part and that they are to do their part.  It’s a team effort directed, supported and obediently carried out with their Savior.  This instills in them that they are dependent on God first and that they must also do their part.  How about you?