Note: As I sat down to write this blog earlier this week, I had many thoughts come to me about what our lives (mine and my husband Eric’s) have been like since we said “Yes” to God in all areas of our lives. We have lost family, friends, and income over the years. However, we have also gained much. We have grown in our marriage with God and in our own personal walks with God. Today, it occurred to me as I was writing this, that this will not be “A” blog, but a blog series. I have no idea how many blogs will be in the series, but let’s begin.

In November of 2011, Thanksgiving weekend, one night seemingly out of nowhere God said to me, “I want to take you higher. Are you willing to go?” When God asks a question, there’s weight to it. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what He meant by “higher”, but after a moment of contemplation, I said, “Yes.” This happened in the evening one night, I believe it was Saturday, I was standing outside on our small porch in Fairview, Montana, while I was waving goodbye to friends who had spent Thanksgiving weekend with us. After the lights of their car faded from sight, I stayed outside in the cool weather wondering what God had meant and wondering why He even asked me. Did the Creator of the universe really need my permission before He wanted to do something in my life? I have no answer for this. After awhile, I went back inside and told my husband Eric what had just happened. When he heard, he too said “Yes” to God. NOTHING has been the same in our lives since then.

This is one of those moments where we are counseled in Scripture to count the cost of following Jesus. Did we count the cost? Honestly, I don’t think we did. Eric and I have often talked about what God asked us back in November of 2011, and we’ve challenged ourselves with the question, “If we knew that all of this would happen, would we still have said ‘Yes’ to God?” Our answer is typically something like, “I don’t know, I hope so, but I just don’t know.” There is a cost to saying “yes” to God.

By us putting God first (not ourselves, or each other; not our children; not parents, or any other human) we shortly realized that we were swimming against the mainstream Christianity that we had once been a part of. That was not our intention, as a matter of fact, I doubt either one of us even thought that that was what we were doing. We were focused on God and His calling, trying to be obedient to Him in all things. We didn’t mean to ruffle anyone’s feathers, or be offensive to anyone, or “unchristian” as some people have accused us of. We were simply trying to do the will of the Father as Jesus said to. (Matthew 7:21 and 12:50) Shouldn’t those who were coming against us – the ones who professed to be Christians – have been the ones who accepted us, stood by us, and encouraged us? Like the church of Acts in the Bible, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47 NASB)

Why was it so hard for people that we knew to accept that we were going to pray about a matter and then do as we felt led by God’s Spirit? Isn’t that what we are supposed to do if we are God’s people? Eric and I didn’t want to rely on human logic, or what our “feelings” were in a situation, or what we thought was right. We wanted to do His will, period.

This is when we started to realize that if we did something that was not in line with people’s perception of what was “right”, if their expectation of us was not met, then we were called “unchristian” or “unloving”; we were in error. We have even been accused that we “don’t serve the same God” as them. On that one, I may have to agree, though there would have been a time when I would have thought that we served the same God – Yahweh.

Over the coming weeks I will dive into more of what our life, our testimony has been even since that “meeting” with God in 2011. This is what saying “Yes” to God looked like for us.