Forever Yes

There are days spent drawing lines in the sand,
"I will walk this way, I choose You.  Forever I'm Yours."

Simple prayers of surrender,  pledges of eternal allegiance.  They may seem brief, but those moments are an encounter, changing, defining, marking...shaping a history with God that no one and no thing can take away.  No one can steal the decisions of "yes" you've given to God, the times of counting the cost and knowing in your heart that you'll never be satisfied unless you risk it all.  Because you were made for love, and love craves after the promise of being fully alive, where the heart can no longer follow what is safe and familiar.

And when you draw that line and say yes to Jesus, to all that He is, you realize he's already said both a continual and final yes to your life before you drew your first breath.  Knitting you together in your mother's womb, dreaming about you before the start of what we understand to be time.  It was a yes.  A yes that heaven knows about and will fiercely protect.  A yes that heaven is backing up, whether we are aware of the support of the celestial or not.  A yes that dances and sings over your life because you are such a wonder, so needed in the writing of this story, so perfectly designed for this time in history.

To be like those who dream.  Who not only dream for our own lives, but dream for our generation, with the sort of faith that Joshua had, leading an entire people into the land of promise.  To be like those whose mouths are filled with laughter, hearts full of song, shamelessly boasting to the nations the greatness of our God.  And it's not because we memorized a few songs.  It's because we have a history with Him.  We've said yes to Him and watched how He's responded to surrender.  We know that He is real, alive, and so deeply in love with humanity that our lives can't help but broadcast that message.

Don't discount the lines you've drawn.  The times you've said yes.  The story is developing, and not one part of it is in vain.