When Your Answer is Yes

Published on (in) courage, June 2011.

It’s just before the event, which several of us are diligently and prayerfully working on, and I anticipate all He is going to do and I am in awe of His glory. I’m in awe of how the process is unfolding, how my faith is being strengthened, how He is proving faithful and I don’t need to see the outcome to know He is up to something big.

I close my eyes and begin to imagine.

My thoughts, for a moment, take me beyond the event to another area of my life I feel God working in and the anticipation, in that too, is overwhelming.

Lord if you show me any more of your glory, I may just fall prostrate before you!

That feeling…that overwhelming feeling of all that He is and is capable of doing in and through me has a history of causing me to withdraw. It’s too much…what? I don’t know. Just, too much.

Could it be fear? Fear that I will have to give up too much to withstand the next call? This present experience is amazing, yet surely anything more He asks of me will put me way out of my comfort zone.

Or is it doubt? Do I doubt that He would use me for any more of His glory? Would that be too much for this small girl? Am I worthy?

Might it be pride? Somewhere deep within do I believe my way is better, more palatable? That the filling of the Holy Spirit might be too much for the taste? Do I feel satisfied with self?

The other day my son, Drew (2 1/2), runs to hide from me. As I approach, he skids to the nearest chair, throws himself down to the floor, plants his face in the carpet, and submerges one arm as far as it will go under the chair. I can see him. Yet, somehow he believes that his escape is successful. Since he can’t see me, I must not be able to see him.

I begin to envision what might happen if I do not withdraw; if I do not run from His presence. If instead I race toward Him, skid at His feet, and throw myself down before Him, face planted – not to hide, but to seek.

It begs the question, what will happen so terrible that I, like my son, would resort to running and hiding my face in hopes I am not be seen?

I begin to envision what might happen if I do not withdraw; if I do not run from His presence. If instead I race toward Him, skid at His feet, and throw myself down before Him, face planted – not to hide, but to seek.

What would happen?

I would surrender to the call. I would say yes. I would go. I would take His refined touch in me and I would not look back. I wouldn’t recall that doubt that holds me back. I wouldn’t give voice to the fear. And His work would multiply in and through me.

I imagine peace, joy and rest.

I imagine this through the challenges, through the discomforts, through the doubt. Even the pain. Even the suffering.

Whose pain? Whose suffering?

My eyes begin to open.

It’s not about me.

I throw myself before Him in all of my unworthiness because He tells me His grace is sufficient. He tells me His power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor. 12:9) And I whisper the words that are required to, once again, leave the old behind so that the new may come.