Will I Yield?
My life seems to revolve around words or themes for a season of time. Not sure why, but I have noticed the pattern many times. Right now the key word is: YIELD. It’s such an interesting word and has multiple meanings that all seem to fit.
Yield (verb) – to produce, to afford, to exhibit, to allow, to concede, to admit to be true, to give as claim of right, to permit, to grant, to emit, to resign, to give up, to surrender, to submit, to comply with, to give way
The two ideas that came to mind were to surrender/submit and to produce. The thought hit me that I have to yield before I can yield. God isn’t going to force my hand in certain things. I have to choose to obey. I have to choose to not be selfish. I have to choose His way over my way. I have to choose to honor Him. I have to choose Him over what my flesh wants. I have to choose to trust Him and live by faith.
Frankly, I don’t want to choose all those things all the time. I’m selfish, my flesh is ornery and I get tired. I know the right thing to do but I just don’t want to do it. My attitude isn’t always what it should be and living by faith is hard, especially when circumstances get worse, not better. I thought it might get easier as I got older or as I grew spiritually but it hasn’t. Surrender and submission are never easy and knowledge doesn’t fix a wrong attitude. I just wish the battle didn’t feel like such a battle.
The other idea of yield is what I really like and want: the good fruit. I have a cherry tomato plant that is going bonkers right now. It has so many tomatoes that I can’t keep up with picking. The plant sprawls into new areas all the time and has taken over the space from other plants. I had no idea it would get so huge! Next time I plant one of those I will give it more room. I marvel that one tiny seed produced such bounty. How does that happen? The seed yielded to the ground, light and the water that gave it life. It didn’t give itself life; it was poured into from the outside. What flows from that is abundance. The tomato plant isn’t grunting and groaning trying to squeeze out a tomato here and there. It’s yielding because it yielded. The Bible is full of parallels between this and spiritual growth too. The problem is never that God isn’t willing to pour into my life all that I need but that I’m unwilling to yield/submit in the ways He’s calling me to surrender. Ouch!
Matthew 13:23 – As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.
Hebrews 12:11 – For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Pray hard…. labor on… love well… yield to God,
Dawn Harris