A few years ago, a friend reached into the offering plate and picked up her guiding word for the year ahead. The paper star she held simply read, ‘Yes’. She was confused. Uninspired. Disappointed. Nevertheless, she committed to exploring what this word would reveal to her…or rather how the Holy Spirit would move through this word for the next 12 months. To her surprise, saying yes opened her up to deeper discipleship.
Each day she lifted up a simple morning prayer. “God, show me where you want me to say ‘yes’ today.” Through the course of the year this led her to take on her first pro-bono case, defending a fellow soldier. It led to opening up her home; creating space for community to gather and form. It also led her to engage with a local mission–helping women escape from sex trafficking in our area (a place no one would imagine this occurs).
Since my friend’s testimony, I’ve thought a lot about the power of simply saying ‘yes’. So I was excited when I read that our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) theme this year is “Say Yes”. MOPS leaders agree with my friend–one little word can change your life. How? As MOPS explains, “saying yes opens us up to new ways of thinking and helps cultivate a growth mindset...Developing a ‘yes’ mindset is living intentionally, focused on your goals for yourself and your family. It’s about listening to God’s still, small voice and doing the brave things rather than the easy things.”
It’s often easier to maintain life “as we know it.” Just staying on the same schedule, the same routine because it’s easier but also because it’s safe. It’s familiar. It doesn’t take as much energy as something new would. It doesn’t require stepping out of your comfort zone. When we move through life this way, life can become pretty mundane. We can miss what’s right in front of us because of familiarity. It’s like praying the Lord’s Prayer every Sunday but not thinking about the meaning of the words. To say ‘yes’ is to be here now. To be fully present with the prayers we pray, within the skin we live and to the people with whom we share the same air.
One children’s book puts it this way: “The world is awake, it’s a wonderful place. Alive with God’s power and glad with [God’s] grace.” Through a simple ‘yes’, my friend discovered that the world is awake. Her ‘yes’ helped her to see the way God wants to use her gifts and experience to help others. She discovered the ways she can create safe spaces to protect others. And she experienced the blessing of creating community with those who live in the same neighborhood–a community in which her whole family finds belonging.
I wonder what saying ‘yes’ looks like for you? For me, saying ‘yes’ looks like putting down the phone more often. It looks like learning how to calm my spinning mind. It looks like joining MOPS and being a part of creating a community with deep engagement. It looks like dropping off dinner for my neighbors with a sick daughter. It looks like praying old prayers with new meaning. It looks about as small as the word ‘yes’, but as Zechariah reminds us, “do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin…” (Zechariah 4:10).
