The Twin Work: The Work of God’s Hand and the Work of Our Hands

by Dave Miller

In my journey of leadership, calling, and discernment, I’ve come to recognize what I now call twin work. It’s the parallel reality of God’s sovereign hand at work and the work of our hands, both necessary, both sacred, and both shaped by covenant. These twin paths—like two streams flowing side by side—run throughout the story of Scripture and the rhythms of our lives.

1. The Creation Mandate: Cultivation and Covenant

In Genesis, God places Adam in the garden not just to enjoy it—but to work it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). This is no menial labor; it is covenantal stewardship. Adam was tasked with naming, organizing, guarding, and cultivating. His work was a direct response to God’s act of creation—a mirror of God’s creative power, now entrusted to human hands.

God’s work made the world. Man’s work shaped the garden. And both were expressions of covenantal purpose.

Even after the Fall, the mandate to work didn’t disappear—it became harder, but it remained sacred. The cultural imperative remains: we are image bearers called to build, shape, multiply, and subdue with integrity and faithfulness.

2. Jesus’ Completed Work: The Pattern of Discipleship

In John 17, Jesus prays to the Father and says something astonishing:

“I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do.” (John 17:4)

This was prayed before his crucifixion. So what was the “completed” work?

It was not the atonement—that was still to come. The work Jesus completed before the cross was the formation of disciples. He identified them, equipped them, invested deeply in them, and ultimately entrusted them with the mission of God. His life was not merely a setup for his death—it was a full embodiment of the Father’s design for multiplication.

He walked with twelve, taught them, corrected them, sent them out, and shaped them into leaders. He modeled a life that others could follow—not just admire. The way of Jesus was never meant to be admired from afar; it was meant to be imitated with intentionality.

And in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20), Jesus made that crystal clear. The mission he gave his disciples was to repeat the work he did with them—to go, make disciples, teach, and train others to obey everything he had commanded.

The work of the cross was Jesus’ alone—an unrepeatable act of redemption. But the work of forming disciples is the work we are called to repeat. This is the work of God’s hands that we now carry forward with our hands.

3. Twin Work in This Season: Sentergy, CoVo, and the Parallel Paths of Obedience

In this season, the Lord has been drawing my attention to what’s repeatable—the kind of work Jesus modeled and handed off before the cross. This disciple-making pattern is the repeatable work of Jesus’ hands, and it is the legacy he passed to us.

One dream gave me a vivid image of the two lanes of obedience we now walk in. I was in a war against a Russian-like navy. There were two parallel waterways extending from a central point. Our people were traveling on large, slow-moving ships—just like the enemy. We watched the enemy ship go down. Then ours did too. I crawled away and was eventually captured, only to be surprisingly promoted and asked for strategic counsel.

I advised abandoning the massive ships altogether. They were too slow, too heavy, and too rigid to respond in real time. Instead, we needed smaller, faster vehicles—cars on parallel highways. The leader agreed, and we began traveling that way.

But then we came across a wreck—two cars had collided. In each, there were adults and an infant. The adults didn’t survive, but the infants did. The enemy leader stood beside me, acknowledged it, and gave me the responsibility to care for the children.

This dream reframed the nature of the twin work as I understand it:

• The parallel paths represent the cultural mandate (work, business, stewardship) and the Great Commission (discipleship, spiritual multiplication).

  
  

• The large ships symbolize the big, rigid institutional forms of church and business that, though once effective, have become too slow and complex to carry us forward with margin, mobility, or responsiveness to the Spirit.

  
  

• The cars represent a shift toward smaller, simpler, more relationally-driven forms—microchurch, decentralized business, and organic discipleship. These are lightweight, agile, and born out of necessity and obedience.

  
  

• The wreck is not a failure—it’s a collision from unfamiliarity. We aren’t used to driving simple. When we begin to align both mandates in small, parallel paths, collisions will happen. But they will lead to clarity, not chaos.

  
  

The infants in the wreckage represent the next generation—disciples and children who will grow up in this new normal. They won’t have to unlearn complexity; they will walk natively in this integrated, simplified, Spirit-led way of life. What we struggle to reimagine, they will simply inherit and embody.

This is what I now call Sentergy—the convergence of being sent with spiritual energy and margin. It’s where co-vocational leadership, grassroots training, and the disciple-making mandate find alignment with the cultural mandate—not in institutions, but in movement. Not in bigness, but in reproducible simplicity.

Final Reflection: The Responsibility to Point the Way

One line from my journal in 2020, during a familiar difficult season navigating this reality, continues to echo:

“I am now laying, torn apart, without the strength to take the next steps, but have the responsibility to point the way to the dark entrance to the steps that are the way.”

That is the essence of the twin work. We may feel exhausted. We may not be the ones who finish what we start. But like Jesus, we are called to complete the work the Father gave us—to raise up, hand off, and multiply faithful disciples. To recognize what must be released, and what must be rescued.

This is our calling: to do with our hands what we’ve seen modeled in the hands of Christ. And to trust that even when the ships sink, God is still moving forward on the roads we hadn’t yet imagined.