Do you work from the bottom up?

My wife and I were recently cooking an apple pie. We set the oven and the timer and left it to cook. I walked through the kitchen later, smelled the delicious pie cooking, and decided to take a peek. I opened the oven door slowly, breathed deeply, and looked at the pie. It looked to me like it was getting done on top so I looked at the timer and saw that there was still plenty of time left for cooking.

I asked my wife, “Is something wrong here? The top is looking too done too early.” She took one look at it, looked at the oven, and said, “That’s because the oven’s on broil.” We were cooking the pie from the top down. I switched the oven over to “bake,” but the bottom crust wasn’t really down when I took it out. Apple pies are best cooked from the bottom up, not the top down.

The same is true for how you approach people. Work with them, from the bottom up, letting ideas bubble up from the team, not top down with you barking orders. Involve others as your partners.

Isn’t that how God works with you?