The Force of Yielding

“What are you going to do to impress God?”

 This question was asked of me once and I haven’t stopped being reminded of the significance of the question. I mean, really, what can we really do to impress Him. He doesn’t need anything. He’s Omnipotent, Omniscient and Omnipresent. My opinion is that what God wants from us is first and foremost relationship. I also think he wants us to “walk out” His purposes on the earth. I have thought before, “That’s it! I am meant to walk out His purpose. That’s what I am going to do!”…..and then, of course, the next thing I find myself doing is taking His plans into my own hands and I am “off to the races” with all the self-satisfaction of one who is soon to be alone, alienated from intimacy with God, flapping in the wind for the enemy to attack, and the process of me spiraling into despair over dashed hopes begins. Sound familiar?

I can’t count (and don’t want to) the number of times I have lived out the scenario above, having forgotten about being with God and waiting on Him. I am convinced that God is much more concerned about us and the relationship between us and Him than He is about anything else. What about being with Him and letting the action of His plan be an outgrowth of the being and waiting? “This is too easy!” I’ve said before. You see, I grew up in an extremely performance oriented world where the formula for living was something like….Performance = everything – worth, significance, value, personal identity….everything! The first question asked of anyone at first introduction was (and still is today), “Glad to know you, what do you do?” Then the ranking and filing begins for the purpose of comparison, which ultimately feeds our sense of worth (or worthlessness as the case may be).

Part of my clinical practice as a psychologist has always included working with kids of all ages. They have taught me so much about human nature. For instance, one thing I’ve learned from them is that the “ranking, filing and comparison game” mentioned above starts a least by the time we start kindergarten, if not well before, perhaps even from the time we first become aware of others and relationships in our environment. At any rate, one thing you can be sure of is that if you go into any kindergarten classroom, especially in the western world, after the kids have had time to get to know each other, let’s say by the end of October of the school year, and you ask them certain questions they will be able to give instantaneous answers: Ask “Who is the fastest runner?” Instantly the person will be identified. “Who is the smartest? Who has problems learning? Who does the teacher like the most?. etc., etc. and the person fitting the description will be identified with remarkable consistency in the answer from child to child. This is near the beginning of the making of our worldly identity.

My experience in working with countless adults and children over the years is that our conception of who we are (identity) does not change much, at least in the sense of being overall negative or positive, from these early years. This, then, is where the performance trap is set. Most of us spend the rest of our lives worshiping the “performance god”. This becomes one of the foremost “high things” that elevates itself above the knowledge of God in our lives. As many of you have heard, we become “humans doing” instead of humans being. Performance becomes the force in our lives. The means by which we matter. You know the sayings, “If you don’t do it nobody will. You have to go out and make it happen if it is going to. Go for all you can get, you only live once” etc.

Now, is this to say that we sit back and wait for everything to happen (and as is often implied, “become a good-for-nothing”), no. It means we do better when we sit back steeped in an intimate relationship with God and wait to see what HE wants, to see where HE wants to go next. Then we move with all the veracity, urgency and strength He gives us. This is the force, the force of yielding to Him.

I had an experience in the Lord regarding the force of yielding that horrified me at the time, and yet has come to be a picture that I hope never leaves my mind. I was going to the Lord in prayer at a time in my life where nothing seemed to make sense. I had tried everything I could think of to serve Him and to please Him, and yet everything that I seemed to pray for in my life came to nothing. I was going to Him asking Him if He was still listening. He was listening, because one day, in His timing, not mine, He opened a picture in my head during prayer that was as distinct as if I was living it right then.

In the picture, I saw the Lord and before Him was a line of people that stretched as far as I could see into the horizon in the distance. I knew it was judgment day, the day that we each approach the throne and account for our lives. I was, all of a sudden, standing before the Lord and I was watching myself tell Him all about how I had been a psychologist, had helped a lot of people through their struggles, etc. and He was smiling at me with such fantastic grace. It was clear that He loved me, but as soon as I was aware of His love I became aware that He kept looking over my shoulder at the guy behind me. At the moment I noticed Him looking over my shoulder, I was all at once standing off to the side witnessing the fellow behind me step up to the Lord. When the man stepped up the Lord’s countenance grew in proportion, becoming a huge ball of light (much like the image I have of Him on the Mount of Transfiguration). The Lord was clearly doing back flips over this guy. And then I became aware of what was transpiring between them. Interestingly, there were no actual words, but Jesus was allowing me to know what was being communicated back and forth. The man was “saying” something like, “Lord, I don’t know what to say to You to account for my life….because You already know everything, every step I took, every decision I made, every action I performed, because You were there! I made sure of it because I called on you constantly. I stepped up next to your heart so that I could sense what you were saying at all times and I only acted when I had the go-ahead from You.” WOW! was I humbled! Here I had been, laying out all the accomplishments I had reached in life, detailing all the actions I had performed, etc. and I knew as I stood there in that image that I had not abided with the Lord on most of them. I knew I had not seen my primary purpose for living as abiding in Him and therefore waited until He pointed before I moved. The image then disappeared. God had made His point. I was on my knees repenting and thanking Him at the same time that He loves me so much as to let me know what more intimacy with Him looks like. Was He pleased with me in the image when I stepped up? Absolutely! Like I said, His eyes were filled with love for me. But, was He doing back flips, no. I knew then, and endeavor every minute now to remember, that I want to be abiding so intimately with Him, waiting on Him with such expectation before I move, that we can back flip together. Performing for God means getting next to His heart, so close as to blend, and waiting on Him for every move we make. Psalm91:9 says “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty”. What can go wrong in the presence of the Lord? How can we receive bad advice there? What can not be healed there?

So, why do I say that abiding in God through Christ and waiting on God represents a “force”? Because Nothing with God is passive, including “resting”, being “still”, and “waiting”.

One of the most known and quoted Scriptural examples of the “action” in “knowing” God is Psalms 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” The Hebrew word for “know” in this passage can be translated “to know, recognize, understand; to have sexual relations.” It suggests the most intimate kind of “knowing”.  

He says be still and know Him. How do we do that? Look at John 14:5 “Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’” Thomas uses one version of the greek word “know” – “oi\da” to know, to possess information; recognize, realize, to come to know; to understand, to be able to use knowledge”.  Look how Jesus responds in 14:7: “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  – The word he uses for “know” the Father is the same word that Thomas used, but after His impartation (“From now on….”) to the disciples, He told them they would “know” Him and the Father at a different level – the Greek word “ginwvskw” to know, come to know, recognize, understand; to have  sexual relations. The Lord Jesus Himself imparted to them the deeper “knowing” that He wanted them to abide in. By steeping ourselves in the presence of the Lord, He imparts the deeper knowing of Him and His Father.

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is John 17. This chapter takes place historically not too long before Jesus went to the cross and is a passage where he is praying to His father. Some scholars say this chapter is the real “Lord’s prayer”. In 17:3 he says this of all those God has given Him (in other words, us), “Now this is eternal life: that they may know (same level of “knowing” as quoted above) you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Later He prays in 17:23 “I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  We are IN God through Christ and we are meant to really know Him!! And His love for us…..just stop now and wrap your mind around the truth that God loves us even as He loved His son Jesus. How much love do you suppose God has for His son? He loves us that much!