“But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.” Matthew 5:37
When you say yes to something, you are actually saying no to something else – it has taken me a lot of trial and error to really understand this. You know – the kind of understanding that is deep down in your bones. I have written this post a million and one ways, and in each version, I tried to tell you about the times I said yes. I said yes to God’s leading me to do various things. Over the past ten years, He’s given me many opportunities.
- I said yes to becoming a wife, which meant I said no to single life.
- I said yes to grief, and I said yes to His peace which overcame my grief.
- I said yes to motherhood, which meant I said no unknowingly to too much selfishness and a host of other things.
- I said yes to being a room mom. I thought it meant I was saying yes to feeding His sheep, but in the end, it seemed like I was really saying yes to making a whole much of parents mad at me.
- I said yes to leading a bible study in a homeless shelter, but it meant I was saying no to an extra day with just Lisabeth and me.
Oftentimes, saying yes or no is not simple as it should be because we do not weigh the cost. Or we say yes when we really want to say no and no when we really want to say yes. We flounder around in indecision. I mean I do, and although I hope you don’t do it, I hope I’m not alone in it either.
Last year I was the yes girl, and it made me busy and tired, and I felt like I said no to being the kind of mother I want to be, which made me frustrated with too much yes.
This year I am the no girl – taking a year-long break from all volunteering and extra stuff, and just focusing as best as I can on mothering, and hopefully writing or blogging, but no has its costs too.
There are so many things to do, and many of them are good things, but there is only one question when the answer is always yes. When Jesus comes knocking, when the Spirit says follow me, spend time with me, the answer is always yes. When you’ve said yes so much even under the pretense of Jesus being the One calling and yet you are too tired to listen to Jesus, to hear His voice, you’ve said yes to something that wasn’t Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t always look like we think He will. He came as a baby and His parents weren’t married when He was conceived. He came as a servant when they wanted a majestic King. He came eating with sinners when they were not clean. He came to fulfill the Law but it seemed to some that He did not abide by it. He said that the way to live was to deny yourself. He who could not look upon sin became Sin so that we may be without sin. When we are weak, He is strong, and His grace is sufficient.
Simplicity – seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, is learning to say yes to the only Voice that matters – His. It is learning to drown out the voices that do not matter. The ones that leave you insecure and say you are not good enough. The ones that say you must do more to be more. It is learning that living is found in dying. It is knowing that His righteousness makes us whole, and no one person anywhere can take the worth He’s given us away from us.
Simplicity is yes to the King. It is recognizing Him even when He is packaged differently than we thought. We are like Anna and Simon in the temple and we recognize that the baby is the mightiest man to walk the planet, and we bow humbly before Him. We become like the woman at the well knowing He is the living water. We are the woman with the issue of blood just touching His garment to be healed.
Simplicity says yes in allowing Him to be our everything.
Photo Credit: Sharon Mollerus
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