A Yes Heart and a Yes Life

Ali Martin - Soul Survivor UK

Whether we’re accepting a place at uni, an invitation to coffee or responding to a friend roping us in to a bungee jumping holiday… the best adventures start when we say YES!  And God is looking for people who choose to worship him and live a full life by saying YES to whatever he asks.

I love the Bible account of when Mary the mother of Jesus is first told that she will give birth to God himself (you can read it in Luke chapter 1:26-38).  When the angel appears to her she is at first troubled, then she has questions and then she simply says: I am the Lord’s servant… May your word to me be fulfilled (v38)

What simple faith.  What stunning obedience. With her heart, with her mouth and then with her life she said yes.

For Mary she couldn’t have known where that ‘yes’ would lead her.  Hers was a life of adventure, pain but also incredible intimacy; she was the one who fed and cared for, who carried and cuddled the Creator of the universe, the Saviour of the world, the King of kings!

For us, we can think that saying yes to God will mean huge sacrifices and doing unthinkably scary things (when I was younger I used to fear it would mean marrying someone I really didn’t like or find attractive, or having to move to a country I’d never even heard of!).  Sometimes God does ask big thing of us – in fact, we are told that following Jesus is about denying ourselves and taking up our cross (Mark 8.34).  But so often what God asks of us is a simple obedience in the everyday choices we make.  Choices to honour him, to show kindness to others, to step out in faith when we sense the Spirit speaking.

This is how we show him that we love him.  We obey him.  Jesus said: If you love me, keep my commands (John 14.15).  For me this has looked like picking up dog poo (that’s a whole other story), offering to pray for someone on a train and in shop (one said yes, one said no) and passing on words of encouragement to people when I think God might be speaking. 

What might it look like for you?

God is looking for a yes heart and a yes life.  If God isn’t saying anything specific right now start with what you already know he has said – start with the Bible!  I’ve been so challenged recently reading the books of 1, 2 and 3 John (right at the end of the New Testament).  In these 3 short books we are commanded again and again to live a life of love.  I have been struck that love isn’t always my motivator, I don’t always love as sacrificially as I could or should.  I’ve said sorry and I’ve said ‘yes’ again to God in his command to love others.

If we know there is something God has been saying to us, through His word or by His Spirit and we haven’t been doing it, then let’s start by saying sorry.  Let’s ask him for his strength to get on with it, and to do so as soon as possible (before we second-guess ourselves or fear sets in).  We might want to ask one or two trusted friends to pray for us, encourage us and to keep gently challenging us to go for it!  Let’s choose to support each other and cheer one another on as we go for it in all kind of big and seemingly small ways.   

If we want to love God and live a life of adventure let’s choose to have a yes heart and live a yes life.