Does God wait for our “yes” to begin? In His great sovereignty, does he choose to pause and listen for our allegiance, our cooperation, before the grand plan rolls out into eternity? Don’t you find it easier to hide in the “God doesn’t need me to carry out His plans.” It is a comforting thought. Our responsibility, indeed, our response to God, is minimized, almost eliminated. Perhaps God doesn’t “need me,” but the King of Heaven and Earth has chosen to include you, even to wait upon you, listening for your “yes.”
Abbie Jane Wells reminds us that we “…tend to forget that it took a ‘yes’ from Mary before God could ‘send forth his Son’ – and if there is any truth to that ‘when the time had fully come,’ it is that Mary’s time had come when she went into labor at the end of her pregnancy: that’s when the time had fully come – that is when Jesus’ time to be born had fully come. … and the ‘Time had fully come only because the woman Mary had said, ‘Yes.’”
Lord, you have chosen to include my “yes” in your plan. Receive my “yes,” and may I say it afresh every morning. Amen
Copyright Richard Leslie Parrott, Ph.D.