No "YES"
by Karen Roller
My granddaughter, Jaina, is two years old and she’s really good at being two. Last week as my husband and I prepared to return home after the holidays, I tried to engage Jaina in a final conversation, but we didn’t get much further than “No carseat. No carseat.” I asked her if she wanted to stay with mommy and she said, “YES!” You would imagine that I might leave well enough alone, but I had to stick one more word in… “Oh, so you do know how to say YES!” Jaina began screeching, “No ‘YES’! No ‘Yes’!” It was 4:30 in the morning, Len and I gave her a kiss and walked out the door.
This morning I was chatting on the phone with my friend, Tonya Kirkpatrick. I shared my Jaina story with her (isn’t that what Grammas do?) and then we went on to talk about Malawi and what’s happening with our teams for this summer. As Tonya and I began to pray for our teams and for some folks that we are hoping are going to say, “Yes!” I started to laugh. (And yes, Grammas do laugh sometimes when they pray!)
How many people is God calling to Malawi who are busy screeching, like Jaina, NO ‘YES’?
Maybe you are one of them.
Tonya took her first trip to Malawi in 2009. She should have gone in 2007 (she will tell you that herself), but she said NO ‘YES!’ to Jesus and missed out on a crazy awesome time – our Genesis Team. In 2009, she agreed with board member, Debbie Brownlow that she would pray about the trip. “It was easy to say “no” to Debbie,” Tonya recalls and for three months she did just that. She said NO ‘YES’!
It is not so easy to say NO to Jesus. The entire last week of February 2009, God spoke in amazing ways to Tonya, through the Word, through friends, through bible study with her boys and through Sunday School lessons. God wants our YES! Tonya said YES! And the rest is her story…of how Jesus transformed her life, leading her into new relationship with Him and into relationships with beautiful, Malawian children. “In Malawi, the Holy Spirit teaches me to use the gifts he has given me and challenges me to grow to new levels with him,” Tonya says.
ephiphany: a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.
2000 some years ago, some men said “YES!” to God and started on a journey following a star. In their bags they packed expensive gifts worthy of a mighty king. They had no idea they would find that king in a stable, with a donkey.
Today is Epiphany. I wonder what epiphany the wise men had that day as they followed the star up to the humble stable and found their king? What wonder and clarity rang in their hearts as they worshipped him there?
There is an epiphany waiting for you in the YES.
I don’t know what Father is saying to you. The small nudges in your heart to follow His Star.
I’m simply asking you:
Will you say “YES” to Jesus today?