From Blind Obedience to Holy Partnership: Why God wants Mature Relationships

From Blind Obedience to Holy Partnership: Why God Wants Mature Relationship 

Think about the difference between parenting a three-year-old and relating to your thirty-year-old child. With a toddler, you need immediate obedience. "Stop when I say stop!" They don't understand that a car might be coming—they just need to obey your command for their safety. 

But with your adult child? You want something entirely different. You want partnership. You want them to bring their gifts and talents to the table. You want a mature relationship where they can even take over the family business and work alongside you as equals. 

God's heart toward us follows a similar trajectory. 

The Growth God Desires 

Many Christians get stuck in a toddler relationship with God—always asking what they should do, waiting for explicit commands, afraid to make decisions without a clear directive. But that's not where God wants to leave us. 

He wants to grow us up into the kind of mature relationship described in John 17, where Jesus prayed that we would be one with Him—"that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me" (John 17:22-23). 

This isn't about blind obedience. This is about holy partnership. 

Jesus' Revolutionary Prayer 

In that same prayer, Jesus made an astounding request of the Father: "that they would know that You love them as much as You love Me" (John 17:23). 

Did you catch that? The Father loves you as much as He loves Jesus. 

This isn't the love of a master for a servant or a king for a subject. This is the love of a Father for a beloved child—a child He wants to invite into the family business, into partnership, into co-ruling and co-reigning with Him. 

Freedom as Prerequisite to Love 

Here's something crucial: you cannot have love without freedom. If someone forces you to love them, is that really love? Absolutely not. 

God values freedom so highly that Paul wrote, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free" (Galatians 5:1). Even in the garden, God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose—including the freedom to choose wrongly. 

Why? Because a kingdom of love requires freedom. You can't create authentic relationship through force or manipulation. 

Partnership, Not Domination 

God isn't looking for blind obedience—He's looking for partnership. He wants us to bring our own gifts and talents to the table. After all, He's the One who gave them to us and wired us with unique purposes. 

When God told me Gregory was my husband a full year before we dated, was I free to say "No way, Lord"? Absolutely. Was Gregory required to go along with it just because God spoke to me? Not at all—God had to speak to him too, in his own time. 

God operates through invitation and wooing, not force and demand. 

The Difference Between Kingdoms 

In the world's system, honor flows upward. You honor those in power, those with authority over you. It's a one-way pyramid where power is taken and hoarded. 

But in God's Kingdom, honor flows in all directions. Jesus—fully deserving of worship—chose to wash His disciples' feet. The One with all power and authority came "not to be served, but to serve" (Matthew 20:28). 

This is how we know we're operating in God's Kingdom versus the world's system: those with the most power use it to lift others up, not to control them. 

Growing Up in Relationship 

God isn't offended when we bring our thoughts, concerns, and even disagreements to Him. He's not looking for robots who never question or think for themselves. He wants sons and daughters who can engage with Him as mature partners in His work on earth. 

This is why He speaks to us—not just to give commands, but to invite us into ongoing conversation about His heart, His plans, and His desires for our lives and our world. 

The Safety of Grace 

Some worry that if we move beyond blind obedience, we'll make mistakes. Of course we will! But Jesus is kind of like Siri sometimes—if we make a wrong turn, He just says "recalculating" and helps us find our way back on track. 

We're not going to cause another fall by mishearing or misunderstanding. Grace covers our learning process as we grow into mature partnership with Him. 

The Ultimate Goal 

The cry of God's heart isn't for perfect performance—it's for intimate relationship. He wants to commune with us daily, to share His thoughts and hear ours, to work together in bringing His Kingdom to earth. 

This is eternal life—not just going to heaven when we die, but knowing God experientially, personally, intimately right here and now (John 17:3). 

An Invitation to Maturity 

If you've been stuck in a three-year-old relationship with God—always anxious about getting His commands exactly right, afraid to step out without perfect clarity—He's inviting you to grow up. 

He wants to give you the dignity of partnership, the honor of collaboration, the joy of co-creating with Him. This doesn't mean less reverence—it means deeper relationship. 

Communication is the key to any healthy relationship. And it has to be two-way. God is speaking because He wants partnership with you in His great work of transforming the world through love. 

The journey from obligation to partnership with God is something we explore deeply in "Honoring God's Voice," where practical tools meet theological depth. 

Blessings, 
Susan Dewbrew