“We’re adding ten years to being with kids in the house.” My wife and I are in our 40’s now. Fostering a baby, and maybe more than fostering, forces you to add up years quick! 

Are we looking forward to one day being “empty nesters”? Are we living for a time when we have no day-to-day responsibilities to our children? A season when they’re all grown up, out of the house, on their own, and all that extra time is ours? 

“We’re adding ten years to being with kids in the house.” On the very next breath a new sentence flew out of my mouth. I smiled, looked at Alissa and said, “It’s ok. We’ve given up our lives anyway.” 

I don’t know where this new foster circumstance will take us, but I know what I’m willing to do. I’m willing to say Yes.  To give up my life to God and what He’s calling us to do. I didn’t know I would be willing until I was in this circumstance, though. A few years back I might not have said Yes. At least not so easy and not so quick.

My Yes to God may not be your Yes to God. Your Yes may not be my Yes. Yet as different as God’s calling is on our lives, there’s one thing He is looking for in both of us: a Yes-shaped heart.

A disciple is one in whom the heart has been born again. They are a new creation. Their heart has been transformed and is being conformed into the image of the Son of God. Jesus had a Yes-shaped heart. 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.” (John 5:19) 

“For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.” (John 12:49) 

“not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)

Our heart isn’t always as willing to say Yes as we need it to be, as we want it to be. Sometimes we say No when and where we should say Yes. But God takes His time, years even, to mold our heart. God shapes our heart as the potter shapes the clay. Given enough time, He will complete what He’s begun.

When and where have we said No to God? Today? A decade ago? Maybe we didn’t realize we were saying No to God. Maybe we weren’t quite ready to say Yes. 

The desires of our heart are often out of tune and out of alignment with the heart of God. But day after day, if we give ourselves in obedience to Him, one small Yes at a time, He can take our No and shape it into a Yes. Today that Yes could be easy…or easier.

I want a Yes-shaped heart. All of my days I want a heart that says Yes to God. I want a heart that finds it easy to say Yes to Him, even if it’s hard when He says No to me. Like our foster baby one day leaving our home. 

Maybe. And maybe not. 

I don’t know.

All I can do today, all I want to do today, is say Yes, God. Yes.