“I’m saying yes to people…to being with them, to loving them. Because people are important. Because Jesus called us to love people, not to check off todo lists and keep our houses perfectly clean.”– Saying Yes: Part 1
But there’s more to saying yes than slowing down and setting aside todo lists on Sunday morning.
Because the hard part is never out there…
The hard part is in here. In the relaxed intimate places. Living ‘yes’ to people starts at home.
It starts with me leaving my pots simmering on the stove to give my husband a long, slow kiss when he walks through the door.
It starts with setting aside my phone when he is telling me about his day.
It starts with putting down the laptop in the middle of a blog post to listen to my husband play the song he’s been working on.
It starts with setting aside that extra 15 minutes of sleep to rub my husband’s back when he’s tired and discouraged and needs to feel worth it.
“We have to say ‘No’ to good things, so that we can say ‘Yes’ to great things.”
Pastor Daniel Williams
Because if we can’t love our families well, then everything else is just a front.
Because If we can’t love the ones we live with day in and day out well…then can we love Him well?
“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
1 John 4:20
And I wonder when and where we started thinking that love just happens. Because the true love I’ve seen requires planning and attention and work. And the truest love I’ve seen ended with the Giver of Love nailed to a cross for me. And that love was planned and intentional. And that planned, intentional love was beautiful.
And true love always starts and ends in the hard places.
In the day-by-day places.
In the easiest-to-take-for-granted places.
In the at-home, comfortable places.
In the deepest-corners-of-my-heart places.
In the I-just-want-to-relax places.
Because a love that says ‘yes’ to people starts with me being loved with a ‘yes’ kind of love.
It starts when I realize that God gave up greater comfort than I can imagine to be with me…to be with the world. And His sacrifice was so much more than I realize.
And He sacrificed that ‘so much more’ in order to be with people.
He sacrificed for the purpose of being with us.
And if we’re called to be like Him, then we should start where He started…sacrificing His own comfort to be with the world.
And the change starts in the heart and is lived out first in the at-home places and then in the rest of our lives.
But heart change is not real change unless it changes everything…every part of our lives.
Be blessed
<3
