The Inconvenient Truth of God's Yes

My Struggle...

The moments of God's loudest yes for me seem to always be in my weakest moments of no for myself.

I don't think I can, He says Yes, I made a way.

I say no one will listen, He says Yes, I am paying attention.

I say I want to give up, He says I called you out of the darkness into the light, now MOVE FORWARD.

I cannot tell you how many times, in the last week alone, I have doubted myself. I have questioned my calling. I have struggled with my purpose. Ironic? Maybe. Human? Absolutely.

As I have read The Gospel of Yes by Mike Glenn, I have warred with my ideas of self worth, calling, purpose, and relationships. I have been challenged on every level. Chapters 11 and 12 have been no different.

I hope you have been reading along. That is what Blogging through the Book is about. Yet, if you have not, I hope what you read here resonates with you. (By the way, you can get the book by visiting my Discover Shopping page or by visiting Amazon.com - an affiliate link.)

There are two things I want to touch on today.

The first is marriage. 

As I read these chapters I found my self agreeing with large sections of text. I once foolishly believed that loving another person meant you found your other half. I found that after entering a marriage under this assumption left me feeling more lonely than before I married. Why? Because when  you are wounded, another wounded person cannot make you whole.

Instead, when we are whole, when we are in Christ, living our yes, we can fully live out our lives with freedom. Knowing that the person we are married to is responsible for their lives and we are there to partner with them as they pursue God's yes, just as they are there as we pursue our yes in God. This creates a need-free environment.

What do I mean? I mean that instead of looking to another flawed human for your needs, you can look to The Source for all your needs. God's grace is sufficient. He supplies all you need. No other human can do that.

Marriage is a beautiful and Godly thing. It is also meant to edify and not drain us. If your marriage is not edifying you, then you may not be living your "yes" in God. You may be looking to the wrong source for your happiness. It will never be that person you lay next to at night. Your yes can only be found in God.

When we are freely and completely invested in God's yes for our lives, it becomes easy to let go and stop trying to control our spouses. It gets easier to forgive their shortcomings because we see God's yes for them active in their lives just as it is active in ours. By finding our yes, we are free to be happy independently of our spouse, yet made one in God (this is the mystery Paul spoke of concerning marriage). Now we can look to our spouses for companionship and encouragement, not spiritual sustenance and emotional anchoring.

There is a phrase that I have heard bandied about in the church: "Hurting people hurt people". This is often true.  Yet, what if we turned that around? "Whole people love people wholly."

This would change the very nature of every relationship we have. Our spousal relationships, our parental relationships, and even our peer relationships would experience an overhaul.

This brings me to my second point.

How should we interact with our world?

I cannot speak for you. I can only speak for myself. Here I have failed. I have isolated myself in my own comfort. I sit behind my computer in my comfortable chair in my comfortably air conditioned house and I ask for God to soften my heart toward the world.

I have been pious and I have been weak.

I am not saying that we should sell all and live in huts to prove we love Jesus. I am saying that laying down our lives to follow Him should not be convenient. It is not convenient. I can not live a life of convenience if I am going to live out my Yes in God.

For me, it means that moments of stretching and discomfort in my life should occur regularly. I should come to the end of me more often than I should want to because I am pouring into other people's lives. This is what God means when He calls us His vessels. We are meant to be filled with His love, His yes, to pour out into the hurting around us. Until we are emptied and need to be filled again.

Living life that way sounds exhausting doesn't it? It also sounds like the heart of my Father. He poured out all He had in His son. His heart hung on a tree. Blanketed by the sin of the world until it was so dark it nearly rent the universe in two. He literally had to turn his face away from the very creation He sustained. His love put everything on the line. For me. For you. For the world.

How can I do any less?

Today, I will rest in Him, get filled as much as I can by His presence and then pour myself into serving. Into giving. I will empty myself into others. It may be into my children, it may be into my neighbor, but I will hold nothing back. I will love the way I am loved. I will love with God's Yes.

Join the Conversation: 

Have you ever felt stretched beyond your limits by something God asked you to do? Can you share what you learned in that experience? Leave a comment below.


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