In my last entry, I started to get a bit caught up in semantics and decided to adjorn for a couple of days. Hopefully I can be a bit more succinct, or at least get to my point in this entry...
I was previously discussing the situations in our lives where me may say yes or no to the wrong things and I will pick up there... It seems that more often than not, the things that we say yes to aren't always the best for us. I say yes to that second piece of cake when my doctor tells me that I should be saying no. I say yes to staying up late wasting time on "I can has cheezburger.com" when I would be much better off going to bed at a reasonable time. (Not to mention that my witness is a bit better when I am not late for work and grumpy) Of course, I have said yes to a lot of good things as well-helping a coworker with something after hours so they could meet a deadline, helping someone move when I would much rather have said no and slept in, even listened to a friend who needed to talk about something when I would have rather done something else.
But to take it up a notch, how about saying yes to God? Assuming I am actually listening when God speaks, how often is my answer yes? I am embarrassed and a little saddened to say that it is a lot less than most people might think. Why? Sometimes I fail to respond because of fear or rejection or fear of failure. Sometimes I am, like CS Lewis says, "the child turning down the trip to the sea shore because I am content playing with mud pies in the yard." In other words, I say no to God because I am too busy saying yes to myself. Yes, I want that, or yes, I want this, or yes, I deserve this... you get the picture. Psalms 37:4 says Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. It kind of makes me wonder if those things that I long for are denied me by God simply because I have said no to Him. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that God is a petty god who sulks because He doesn't get His way but rather, it makes Him an amazingly patient and gracious God who longs to bless but withholds His blessing because I refuse to accept it. To be sure, God has blessed me anyway, but it does make me wonder what my life would be like if I said yes to Him and truly delighted in His working in my life and in the world around me.
Furthermore, what would my life look like if I said yes to Him in the manner that Jim Carrey's character says yes to every opportunity that comes his way in 'Yes Man?' Something tells me that my at times smaller-than-a-mustard-seed faith might be forced to grow. I might actually expect God to show up and work according to His promises rather than taking the attitude of Zachariah who basically told God, "I am too old for this. You can't give me a son now." Scripture doesn't record it this way, but Zachariah basically told God 'no, you won't either because I am beyond tired of waiting for you and frankly, you aren't working on my schedule.' Contrast that to Isaiah 6:8. When God asks him "Whom shall I send?" Isaiah responds simply with "Here I am. Send me." Isaiah didn't hem and haw, say he needed to go bury his father, make associate at his firm, find a wife, or read a couple more books of Scripture. He didn't even say "yes....but." He said yes to God and his life certainly was never the same. Of course it had its ups and downs but I think that if I could ask Isaiah what he would have done differently, I wouldn't hear him say that he wished he had pretended he didn't hear God when He told him to go. Or take Peter for instance, even though we tend to criticize him for sinking when he stepped out of the boat, he could have said no in the first place. Sure, he had little faith, but what of the other disciples? They weren't even willing to risk sinking in order to join the Lord on the waves. Perhaps we need to daily ask ourselves the following question each day: Am I saying yes to God today or yes to my own desires and my own comfort? The answer may not be one we are proud of, but His mercies are new every morning, so perhaps we should take the chance to say 'yes' anew every day.
