Yes.
Yes is the word the Lord has put on my heart for this year.
At first I was a little confused. I guess I was expecting something more profound when I prayed for Him to give me a word for the year – something I needed to work on, give up, something He really wanted me to focus on this year, a lifestyle change that needed to be made, etc. It could be anything.
The word ‘yes’ just wasn’t at all what I was expecting. Not going to lie, at I kind of wanted a redraw.
I even got a little defensive about it.
“I say yes to you God. I did after all commit to serve as a missionary for 11 months overseas! So why do I need this word?” -My pathetic plea to God hoping that I would prove some kind of point that I was right.
Over the past few weeks though, the Lord is showing me that ‘yes’ may be a simple 3 letter word that we use so often in our every day conversations, but it’s also a powerful, life giving and life changing word.
Every day we are met with the opportunity to say yes (or no) to God.
Yes to receiving and accepting the great love our Father has for us.
Yes to having a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus.
Yes to fearlessly following Him.
Yes to trusting Him wholeheartedly.
Yes to living outside of our comfort zones.
Yes to taking risks.
Yes to going where He goes.
Yes to being bold and courageous.
Yes to abandoning our wants and desires for more of Him.
Yes to allowing his heart’s desires become ours.
Yes to loving the unlovable.
Yes to serving the hungry.
Yes to reaching out to the brokenhearted.
Yes to giving to the poor.
You get the idea right?
While God was showing me all the ways in which I can either choose to say yes or no to Him, I still didn’t quite get it. What is the purpose? What is the point He is trying to get across to me?
Two things He’s shown me so far :
1) Sure I’ve been able to say yes to God a few times in the big things, but what about the small, every day things? Saying yes to an 11 month mission trip is just one yes, but what about when I leave and I’m actually “there” (wherever that may be each month!) working?
Will I say yes to Him even when my heart is broken? When it means stepping way out of my comfort zone? When I feel inadequate? When things get really hard? When I’m uncomfortable?
Will I be willing to risk everything to say yes? To follow Him, to serve Him, in whatever way that may look like?
And what about the time leading up to my trip?
Saying yes to God isn’t always a big, life changing moment.
Sometimes it’s as simple as taking a friend out for dinner and listening to what is going on in he/she’s life.
Sometimes it may be buying a meal for the person behind you, no matter how much food they may order.
Sometimes saying yes may mean working in a soup kitchen once a month, giving your extra sandwich for lunch to the homeless man/woman on the corner, or going to a bible study at church.
And sometimes it may mean saying yes to going on a mission trip – whether it be overseas or in the states.
So to finish the statement above : Saying yes to God isn’t always a big, life changing moment, but in the end, it just may change your life and those around you.
2) Ephesians 3:18 and 19 say, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
We hear all the time (or at least most Sundays if not every Sunday in church) about the goodness of God, how much He loves us, how trustworthy He is, that He is the great I AM, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful Counselor, the Bread of Life…
We are told that He will never leave us nor forsake us. In every situation we face, He is with us. He is strong when we are weak and He will take care of us and provide us our needs.
These are good and dandy things to hear, but in order for these to become something more to us than just words we hear, we must be willing to say YES to God. In order for those words to have meaning to us, we must let Him into our lives – He is waiting! We must choose to follow Him wherever He may lead us.
Then, rather than hearing about who God is, we begin to know Him in a personal way. We experience for ourselves His Peace, His love, His provision in our lives. We begin to trust Him with our whole heart. We begin to believe that when we say yes to living uncomfortably, when we say yes to being bold and going where the Lord leads, He really does go with us. He takes care of us. He provides for us. He loves us so.
His love, His promises, they become real to us because we are experiencing it for ourselves. Taste and see that the Lord is good! Psalm 34:8
The more I choose to say yes to the Lord, the more I begin to grasp and understand the depths, the height, and the width of His great love.
So here’s to saying yes to God today, tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. Here’s to fully embracing all that the Lord has for us, trusting Him with our hearts, and following where He leads.
I double dog dare you to start saying ‘yes’, in both the big and small things, and just see what God does!
