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.

Standing in the River, Waving a Stick

We were camping this week along a lazy stretch of the humble Duck River which ran alongside the state park campground.  To look at it, the water looked murky, no wider than a rock could be thrown to the other side, and frankly, no fish in sight.  The river was bordered by walls of eroded granite and large trees leaning precariously over the muddy banks.

But as my husband always says, “The fish are there.  You can’t catch one, unless you wet your line.”

And so, in the middle of one afternoon, he fished for a while, casting out into the slowly moving water, under the canopy of a crystal blue sky and early-October leaves just starting to change colors.  Nothing in the water even moved.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next afternoon, a little cloudier and cooler, he scrambled down a bank on the other side of the two-lane, and tried another spot with a different lure.  Within the first few casts, he landed the largest small-mouth bass he had ever caught.

Later, we discovered that this unassuming piece of water is part of a 284 mile tributary. And surprise of surprises, more species of fish are found in the humble Duck River than in all the rivers of Europe combined.

The fish are there.  We just don’t always see them.  Or wait for them.

Fishing is not about hurrying, or even catching countless fish, but listening, watching and wonder.  So is praying.  To just be still before God, taking the time to be aware of His Presence, and to converse in ways that cannot be limited by mere words.

When we pray, we “wet our line,” and cast before the eternal God our concerns, joys and questions. “What do I do in this situation?”  “What is Your way through?” “What is now and what is next?” Not for God to bring an answer of our own choosing (I’ll take a 20-inch rainbow trout, please), never if there will be an outcome, but realizing that God is already responding in ways far beyond our imagination and the perimeters of our prayers.

In the vocabulary of those who fish –or pray-- the words hope, waiting, and patience all have a common thread of expectation.  Something will happen, something is about to happen.  God is not limited by the passage of time we place on Him.

Waiting is not a passive spectator sport, but a fully-engaged activity, aware, prepared, and ready to go.  Indeed, another way to define waiting is to serve, as in a waiter. 

And even as we watch and listen and serve Him in the interim, God surprises us.  He ambushes us with His goodness in the most unexpected ways of all, in the most unfamiliar spaces, and unlikely times.

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him.   Psalm 37. 7

Why are fishing and praying so caught up in waiting?

We may not yet be ready.  The point at this time may not be about catching a whopper at all, or seeing an answer, but a matter of trusting Him. Not dependent on what happens to come to the surface, but willing to accept what God brings about.

And as we pray one way, and then another, whether starting or continuing to pray, we begin to pray differently about what is before us.  We become aware of Him.  We are not speaking words into a void, but conversing with the Almighty.  Welcome God and invite Him in, and dwell with Him in a state of expectation. 

Is not this to know Me? declares the LORD.  Jeremiah 22. 16

God nudges us to try –or pray-- another way in this. His response may not be on this meek and mild stretch of river, or in this volatile situation.  It may not be this afternoon, but tomorrow.  It may be not catching fish at all, but rising to one’s feet in the splendor of His creation, aware of His Presence, listening to His voice on the smooth waters, standing firm in expectation, and trusting Him just a little more.

Those are the conditions in which the faithful can flourish.

And when we are content in following Him, even in the most unexpected places, He says to us, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”  So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.  John 21. 6

And after a day of fishing, I will often ask my husband, “How did you do?”

He nearly always smiles and replies, “It’s not about the fish.”

 

Just Ask

 

When she was in middle school, one of our daughters enjoyed gymnastics until it became fiercely competitive.  It was no longer a matter of signing up for a particular class, but now auditioning for and trying to win a slot on the competitive team.  But our daughter did not want to compete.  She wanted to learn gymnastics and just enjoy it.  When she did not make the cut, she was sad.  “I just want to do the work outs,” she said.  I suggested that she approach the coach and tell her that.  “Just ask,” I said.

It didn’t even occur to her that she could ask.  That possibility was not even on her radar.

The outcome surprised her.  She was allowed after all to work out and train with the team.  But even more importantly, she learned to “just ask,” in so many situations at school and later in her career.

It never even occurs to us that we too can ask God, no matter how likely or impossible the situation or the possible results. Do we even think of asking? 

But it is in the very act of asking, the tectonic plates of the world begin to shift.  Our thoughts are changed, our hearts are changed, and we even begin to ask differently.  God may or may not alter our circumstances.  And He does not change.  But we do.

Jesus said, Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find.  Knock, and it will be opened to you.  Matthew 7. 7

This passage is not a magic formula to manipulate God.  God does not work that way, nor does prayer.  Note the sequence:  Ask and Seek and Knock.    Something always happens when we pray.  And God delights in surprising us.  We don’t always know what we are praying for.  We cannot know how God will respond.  Sometimes it never occurs to us to ask God about it.

In The Hobbit, Gandalf points out, “You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”

One of the greatest things we can pray is not that God would give us everything we want and ask of Him, but that He would reveal Himself to us.  Praying not that we would get what we are looking for, but oh, so much deeper than that.

Ask, seek, knock.  Praying is about all those things.  God does not expect –nor want-- an elaborate boardroom presentation, spelling out our carefully planned justifications for needing something, wanting something, and how God should behave according to our vision in this situation.  Just ask. And listen.

God may provide an open door, or an exit, and maybe not, but always a strength that is not our own. God may enlarge our brains to think about something in a new way, coming at it from a different angle. (“Where did that come from?”)  And as an added “side of fries,” God also includes His great and mighty tweaking of our hearts.  Through praying, He trains us to trust Him more.

Because whether in the next ten minutes or six months or twenty years from now, we are going to need to know how to trust Him more, like knowing how to put on an oxygen mask in a matter of life or despair.  Praying is not just building our trust in God, but God multiplying His strength in us. 

In all our thinking, pondering, worrying, research and calculated plans, do we ask, “What do I feel God is saying about this?”  Have we neglected to ask Him about it?  There is a monumental gap between what if we prayed about it?  And what if we didn’t?

“Because you prayed to Me…”  Isaiah 37. 21

                Nothing can remain the same.

 And if we do not pray?  We are the ones who miss His wonders.

                                 We miss Him in this.

Ask.

Listen.

Expect.

Repeat.

Invite Him in.

When we finally come before Him, asking God to show us who He is, we recognize God is a lot bigger in real life than we ever imagined, so much kinder, gracious and merciful.  He does not just take our requests into His hands.  He holds us in His arms.  God has loved us all along.  It is not that we need to wait on the Lord.  He has been waiting for us.

When it comes down to it, just ask.  Pray faithfully.  Ask Me.  And watch what happens.