One Yes Changes Everything
/“Let me go to the fields and pick up the leftover grain behind anyone in whose eyes I find favor…So she went out, entered a field and began to glean behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she was working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelek.” (Ruth 2:2-3)
Ruth “found herself” working in the very place where she belonged. In the field of her own family. As much as this is a story about Ruth serving Naomi and finding her Boaz, it is a story about Ruth finding herself. She learned of her own identity as belonging in that field, not as a servant, but as a steward – as a daughter, as a wife, as a member of the family of ownership.
I remember saying one very feeble “yes” to Jesus when he called me to be a speaker. It was one seemingly insignificant, very small step. So small it was almost unnoticeable. An invisible “yes” in the spaces of my heart.
I began more intentionally preparing for the Bible studies and small groups I was already leading. I decided to take any opportunity to study and to practice becoming a better speaker. During the staff corporate prayer times I often led at my organization, I began intentionally asking God how he wanted me to exhort the team that day. I’d basically have about one-minute to transition us in prayer. But I committed to take facilitating staff prayer as an opportunity to intentionally be faithful to God’s calling on my life as a speaker. Without fail, after nearly every prayer time, someone would share with me how the words God had put on my heart specifically encouraged them. God encouraged me as I was faithful in these small steps. He will use whatever we offer. He is looking for even the faintest whisper of a “yes, Lord.”
I imagine when Ruth said “Let me go into the fields...” that too started with an unseen “yes” in her heart.
So here I am, I’ve said “yes” ever so faintly. The yes in my heart that only Jesus could hear and interpret. And He started moving mountains. He planted in my heart the vision for Unveiled and nudged me forward with sweet confirmations. Just a few weeks after my “yes” to start Unveiled, I was invited to speak at a conference for 1500 Christian leaders of major ministries and organizations. When I got the call I was dumbfounded. And I knew it was the Lord because it didn’t make sense to me. Here I was without the credentials that many of the other big name speakers had, but Jesus had opened a door. All I had to do was say yes.
And he has continued to open door after door, to my complete amazement.
Daughters of the King, allow me to encourage you. Some of you have said in your heart: “Let me go over here into this field, this job, this assignment, this ministry, and pick up the grain behind anyone in whose eyes I might find favor.” And the Lord is saying: get ready to take your rightful position. As soon as you take that first step into the field, you’ll discover that the eyes of the Great Steward have fallen upon you and he has called you higher; he has called you into the place of your birthright, your covenant right as an heir of promise. He has called you into your purpose.
Follow the prompting in your heart to go where God is calling you and get ready to look up and “find yourself,” and discover that you are no longer gathering grain, you are stewarding a field, governing a people, and giving birth to the destiny of nations.
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah,
the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob…
Salmon was the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed,
whose mother was Ruth.
(Matthew 1:1-5)
Ruth looked up and found out that she not only belonged in that field, she was destined to be a steward over it. She was not called to gather grain, but to plant it. She was not called to glean behind the harvesters, she was called to give birth into the lineage of the Lord of the Harvest.
The impact of our yes to God is always far and beyond what we could ever see, ask or imagine. Let's say "yes" to the nudge of God in our lives, lean in to our purpose, and bring glory to the name of Jesus.