They present themselves early in life – the big questions: “Will I make it? Do I have what it takes? Will I measure up? Will I qualify? Will I be accepted? Will I be loved?” When a group of kids picks teams to play softball, the shy, less-coordinated kid asks. When final exams are the order of the day, less-academic kids (or those who’ve goofed off all semester) ask. When it’s time to ask someone on a date, to a movie, for ice cream, to the prom, all guys ask (girls have no idea how terrifying it is!). Sitting at the wheel, beside the examiner for the road test, all teens ask. Waiting for a response from that University, every would-be student asks. Every man-child down on his knee has one question on his lips and all the others in his head. He asks (begs, pleads, grovels??). And those job interviews! No matter how smiling the interviewer may be, every interviewee asks – and then there are those annual reviews! (more asking). Regardless of outward bravado, the inner flitting of those butterflies, the perspiring forehead, the clammy handshake, the cracking voice, all expose our fragility, our desperation to hear a yes. Our journeys are littered with lots and lots of question-asking scenarios.
The big questions pursue us, naggingly, into the early days of our in-Christ life, too. It’s like they’ve been branded onto us, woven into our genes, inescapable and demanding. So, when Jesus himself, along with all the writers of Scripture, affirm the absolute, perfect, complete, never-to-be-repeated, sacrifice of Jesus for us, all our questioning gets suspended in the air, like half-inflated helium balloons, drooping piteously with not enough gas to soar, but too much gas to wilt on the ground. The Answer, unexpectedly, even shockingly, nigh onto unbelievably, populates our queries with His thundering: “YES!” – full stop. In the no-breathing gap that follows, sans balloons, sans questions, He offers: ‘Come to a resting place in luxurious love, an oasis of peace, a quiet brook of bliss, to be restored and revived, to have the pathways to God’s pleasure opened.’ (adapted from Psalm 23, TPT) “Jesus Christ is the Son of God . . . and he has never been both a “yes” and a “no.” He has always been and always will be for us a resounding “YES!” For all of God’s promises find their “yes” of fulfillment in him.” 2 Corinthians 1:19,20 TPT. Yes is good, very good! Hesed/Agape to y’all! See you tomorrow at 10 AM. PD
