YIELD!!!

"Yield now and be at peace with Him; thereby good will come to you." Job 22:21

I've been painstakingly reading through Job for awhile now. It's hard not to get bored (or annoyed) with verse after verse of discourse about why calamity comes to the faithful. But I know that's what I would be asking, too. WHY??? Sometimes we may not know this side of heaven why God allows difficulties and trials into our lives, but how are we to respond when He does? This verse popped out at me a couple of months ago; I often favor verses that give a command because then there's no question about what I'm supposed to do!

The first directive is to YIELD. Naturally my mind immediately went to the rules of the road. When we yield in traffic, we pause and then delay what we intended to do in order to allow another driver to do what they intended to do. In other words, we put someone else's will ahead of our own. The same thing happens when we put our life in God's hands; we put aside our desires for God's desires. Our ultimate goal should be to pursue such intimacy with Him that His desires will become our desires, and then yielding will be a sweet surrender rather than squealing tires and a bent fender.

So what does yielding involve? I checked a sidenote in my Bible for that. Apparently the word used for "yield" in my translation also means to "know intimately." Interesting. So the more intimately you know someone, the easier it is to yield. Think about it...it's easy to yield to someone if we know what their intentions are. And you know their intentions if you're close to them. If my husband tells me I should lock the front door, it's easy for me to yield to him since we share a close relationship and I know that his intentions are to keep us safe. Same with God...He might tell me to turn the channel if something offensive is on TV in order to keep me pure.

Here's where it gets tricky....sometimes we have to yield to God even if we don't know what His purpose is. He isn't always clear about the "why." Sometimes, like with Job, He allows trials and tribulations to come our way that seem pointless...even unfair. He wants us to still yield to His will, to trust that He knows what He's doing and He'll work everything together for our good. This isn't usually very easy for me....I always want to know WHY something is happening. But you know what makes yielding to Him easier? Spending time with Him, talking to Him, even asking Him questions. Because the more intimately I know God, the easier it will be to yield. And that's where I find my peace.