JUST SAY YES!

Recently, I was reading through Matthew, and I reached the part of the book where Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John to follow him. This is a familiar story to me, as I heard it told often, growing up in Sunday school. But being old enough to read through these stories for myself, I often find myself stumped by the implications of them. 

When Jesus calls those initial disciples, they immediately drop everything to follow Him. Although this is a story of great faith, I can’t imagine how daunting it must have been. These were grown men with families, jobs, and responsibilities. To drop everything and go follow Jesus with no plan, and no way to make sure everything was okay at home while they were gone had to take a lot of faith. I can only imagine what they must have told their wives and families in those moments, or what must have been going through their heads as they dropped their fishing nets. 

A lot of us can’t imagine leaving behind loved ones or the things we worked so hard for to follow something God has called us to. Even when we stand to lose nothing, what God asks us to do can sometimes be scary - especially when it is far out of our comfort zone or filled with uncertainty. It’s hard to give our "yes" when we can’t fully understand what we are saying yes to. When God has led me towards certain responsibilities or leadership positions, I often stop to question: “Why me?” My mind would fill with doubts and all of the ways that I wasn’t right for the position or even the way people would consider me if I took on this new role. All of those things can fill me with hesitation that can stop me from walking in what God had called me to do. 

If I feel this way for relatively small things, I could only imagine how amplified that was for the disciples in such a life-changing moment. They had full faith and trust in Jesus at that moment, but I think there was still real anxiety and doubt in their hearts. And despite that they still said yes to God. I think that sometimes we feel that we have to be 100 percent on board to accept God’s calling and give Him a yes; however, God doesn’t need 100 percent. In Luke 17:6, Jesus says, “If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you!” All He needs is our yes, and it takes faith to say YES! God wants us to trust Him and rely on Him when He calls, it doesn’t matter if we aren’t 100 percent sure; He just wants our yes. 

~Nia Roberts