That Lingering Yellow Light

 

When our oldest daughter was about three years old, she came home from Sunday school very excited one week to share with us that God answers prayer like a traffic light:  red means no, green means yes, and yellow means wait.  “God always answers,” she said.

That simple word picture made perfect sense to her.  When we pray, we can trust God in what He is doing.

Even in her young eyes, our daughter realized for every moment of prayer, God responds.  He can’t help but take action in some profound way, more powerfully than we even can pray.  When we pray, we are interacting with the Almighty.

There is a lot we cannot see from where we stand.  There is a lot we cannot know because He is God and we are not.  And while an analogy can help us understand a little, it gives us but a glimpse.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or even imagine, according to the power at work within us…. Ephesians 3. 20

The analogy unfolds in deeper ways.  In real life and prayer, a red light means to stop on the spot.  Not just to slow down, but to stand still until further direction.  It may mean a change of course.  Or turn to the right or the left.  Or just STOP.  It’s why it is red – to get our attention.  Don’t go there.  Don’t even inch forward.  Does God really mean stop?  (Yes, Eve, He did.)  We have to trust God.  What does it take to get my attention? 

And when ignored, well, we witness collisions all around us. It is a matter of the will that impacts everyone around us.

The green means GO!  It is not that our prayers are answered in the affirmative, that we were able to convince God of our plan, or that God agrees with us.  Green still means “Follow Me into this.”  Sometimes green is simply the encouragement to keep going, or keep pursuing what God has placed before us.  But sometimes green is not what we want.  “This is going to be hard.  I can’t see over the next hill.  I can’t see where this is going.”  Green too requires trusting God.   

And then comes the lingering yellow which does not mean just to wait, but to yield.  We think of yielding as a submitting to someone else, but yield is more often mentioned in Scripture as the result of responding to, listening to, and following God --the bearing of fruit--, as in The land shall yield its increase. (Leviticus 26. 4) 

But it also – even in the bearing of fruit – is tied to submitting to God.  But yield yourselves to the LORD and come to His sanctuary (2 Chronicles 30. 8)

In the ancient Hebrew, yield in this verse means to give, grant, permit, consecrate, commit, entrust, give over, deliver up, stretch out and extend.  The primitive root for yield means to be used with “the greatest latitude of application,” according to Strong’s Concordance. 

Yielding to another and the bearing of fruit are inextricably linked.  That yellow light provides an opportunity to rush through the intersection (beat that light), proceed cautiously, or allow someone to take our own rightful place.  That selflessness of bowing down or letting go for the good of others is a visible form of the gospel, giving ourselves up to free others.  What do we choose?

That lingering yellow responds “Not my way but Yours.”  The yellow light means being aware of everything around us and then make a move, yield to another, commit the situation to God, and proceed cautiously.  What do we end up doing at moment’s notice?  Exactly what we have been practicing.

Prayer can give us the courage and heart to do that—to give what is rightfully ours for the well-being of others. 

Yielding, like prayer, spills over into all of life.  It is a strengthening that moves from one situation to the next, exercising the greatest latitude of application.  Not should I, but how can I, yield in this difficult position or hard situation?

Others watch how we drive, how we treat others, how we respond when things are difficult, how we navigate in the hard stuff, how –or if --we choose the selfless rather than the selfish.  And it is not just others who are watching how we respond, but our own children sitting in the passenger seat, watching our every move, every reaction in word and deed, this is what to do.  Have they witnessed us praying? It may be a momentary situation, or what doesn’t appear to matter in the grand scheme of things, but we are engraving a legacy for generations.

Yielding in the most volatile situation in the office, or in the midst of a confrontation, or even in traffic, what kind of people live like that?

“Your life as a Christian should make non-believers question their unbelief in God,” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer from a prison cell in Nazi Germany.  He had been living out that truth for decades, and seventy years later, it still resounds.

The lingering yellow points us to think prayerfully about everything. 

Yielding is a matter of love, not grudgingly replying, but lovingly responding as His beloved child.

God guides us from one response to the next, from one tiny yielding to a much more consequential one.  There are no small responses.  We are changed by our choices as we pray.