What went wrong? Each driver wanted that spot in the road. At the same time. Neither would yield. And now, one lucky driver is receiving a citation! Failure to Yield Right-of-Way. Ouch—this is going to get expensive!
I find life is a lot like driving — often my will collides with another’s because neither of us will yield… and things get messy in a hurry. Sometimes my will crashes into God’s. Failure to Yield Right-of-Way is never pretty.
Heartbeat #3: a yielded heart. God is looking for yielded hearts.
He found such a heart in Mary when she answered the angel, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be done to me just as you have said.” (Luke 1:38)
He found a yielded heart in the apostle Paul, too: “All the things I once thought so very important I now consider worthless because of what Christ has done. I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ.” (Phil. 3:7,8)
Jim Elliot expressed his yielded heart this way: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
But certainly the most vivid expression of a yielded heart came through our Savior’s own agonizing surrender: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matt. 26:39)
Here lately the Lord has been letting me know about an area of my heart that needs yielding. I think He’s warning me that I’m headed for a nasty and expensive collision.
Lord, You know I don’t particularly want to change my course. My natural tendency is to stiffen my neck, not yield my heart. So change my heart, O God. Please incline me to yield — give me grace and strength to defer my will to Yours.