The power of partnerships …

I bet many of you, at some point in your childhood, found yourself on a playground alone but were still lured to the teeter totter.

It doesn’t work with just one person, a teeter totter requires a working partnership of two people.

But you tried it anyway …

A swift kick launched you a few inches upward and then immediately … whack! A harsh slam back to earth.

Some things, like a teeter totter, don’t work without a partner. Many things work better with one, like this story told by pastor Bret Bone:

During the summer of 1904 an unlikely partnership was formed at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.

The summer was unusually hot and people were searching the fair for something to help cool them off. A vendor named Arnold had just what they were looking for … ice cream.

People lined up for what seemed like miles to get some of his cool and satisfying ice cream, but there was one problem. Arnold was not prepared for the demand and ran out of paper bowls.

Next to Arnold’s ice cream booth was a man named Ernest, a pastry chef, who was making a Persian wafer dessert. Ernest also had a problem: his pastry was not selling.

Ernest noticed the problem Arnold was having and took some warm pastry and rolled it into a cone shape. He then went over and showed Arnold how the cone could hold a scoop of the ice cream.

On that hot day during the World’s Fair in St Louis the wafer ice cream cone was born because a partnership was formed.

Like the delectable pairing of ice cream with a cone, life is more “delicious” — or certainly more productive — when we pair up with a partner or partners. That’s something even the wise King Solomon wrote about:

“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. Likewise, two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken,” Ecclesiastes 4:9-12.

We think of the great church planting done by the Apostle Paul, but Paul never forgot the vital partnerships that made his work possible …

“Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now,” Philippians 1:3-5.

And then there’s the partnership essential to our lives ..,

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing,” John 15:4-5.

Whether it’s the partnership of a marriage, or partnering in friendship, a business partnership, or as God’s children serving in His kingdom, we can accomplish far more in partnership with others than we ever could alone. With that in mind, how are you creating partnerships in the New Year ahead of you? What partnerships are you taking into the decade of the 20’s? How can you better serve God by building partnerships with others?

Scotty