"Yes, Lord."

So, I’ve been in Mombasa, Kenya for eight months now, and I decided to follow Christ wholeheartedly . . . two, three months ago? For a while I was trying to figure out the day exactly—the day I decided it was “all or nothing,” the day I finally said “yes” to God.

Not long ago, I was reviewing some journal entries from my study through Experiencing God. At some point I had stopped—several months back—and I couldn’t remember the reason, so I turned to the last entry: “I cannot say ‘yes.’”

I remember now, the fear that the idea of an emphatic “yes” had carried: “yes” had brought me to Africa—alone; “yes” had separated me from my family and friends—for a year; “yes” was uncomfortable and lonely; “yes” was out of the question.

But as I read that entry, a broad, goofy smile spread across my face. Somewhere within the past few months, Christ changed my heart. He romanced my soul, and I had said “yes.”

There is a deep theological concept here concerning a progression that must occur to transform a person from being a “conditional follower” to one that can pronounce an emphatic “yes” to Christ.

Several weeks ago, I read about an interview with the Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. When posed the question as to the basis and method of her success, she merely replied, “I am a great writer because when I was a little girl and walked into a room where my father was sitting, his eyes would light up. That is why. . . . There is no other reason.”
Consider the disciples, knowing without a doubt that the God of all creation loved each one of them personally, regardless of anything they were or did. He loved them. When one is truly loved unconditionally, when one has grown in the deepest, most fulfilling, most romantic relationship, there is nothing a person wouldn’t do for the sake of that lover. This is what fueled the disciples through their ministries, what—as tradition testifies—compelled most to their deaths: love. Love for Christ, and why? Because of His great love.

I think, as evangelical Christians, we often become inoculated to the Gospel of Christ, and even to the gospels themselves—reading through the pages, getting caught up in our own agendas concerning politics, theology, or next week’s sermon—and somehow begin to neglect the beauty and truth that lies in the person of Christ Jesus. It is for this reason that we find such difficulty in saying “yes” to Him. It is not that we lack the desire to be like Christ or that we lack the desire to please him. Instead, it is simply our failure to know Him, because to know Him is to love Him. And as Paul reminds the Church in Corinth, “Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again” (II Corinthians 5:14-15). Therefore, to love Him is to say “yes.”

Indeed, “yes” still leaves me here in Africa—alone. “Yes” still leaves me separated from my family and friends—for a year. “Yes” remains uncomfortable and lonely. But the Creator of the universe loves me, and so I am (finally) “compel[led] . . . [to] . . . live for . . . Him who died for [me] and was raised again.” And “the world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a [wo/]man who is fully consecrated to Him” (Henry Varley).

And so the journey began . . . .