June 19

“In everyday religion there are three things that are always absolutely necessary in the attitude of the soul toward the Lord:  to yield, trust, and obey....To yield something means to give that thing to the care and keeping of another.”  Hannah Whitall Smith, God is Enough, 6/19

It’s clear to me that all I need do when I call upon the Lord is to have an attitude of yieldedness for then I can exercise my trust.  I would think obedience would come naturally at this point.  The reason we have such a hard time obeying is that we do not trust and we do not trust because we have not yielded.  This yielding is the emptying of ourselves so that we can receive God.  I have this image of a bright yellow-orange YIELD sign at the entrance of a highway. Just as I must merge onto the highway at the first available space, I must be willing to accelerate or decelerate into God’s stream of traffic (life).  He will clear the way for me as He sees fit.  I just have to yield until the way is clear.  What we do too often is see that YIELD sign as a STOP sign.  We look at the traffic and become frightened and put on the brakes when we’re supposed to be speeding up in order to merge safely.  Once we come to a complete standstill we’ve lost momentum and merging becomes not only harder but riskier.  Lord, may all the STOP signs of fear become Your YIELD signs!

“And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.” Matthew 27:50