By Linda Tancs
Yielding is sometimes a negative form of surrender, like when you let someone else’s opinion of your ability dictate your actions or dreams. Other times we get aggravated at yielding, like at a traffic sign that’s delaying where you need to go or when rules of order require you to give the floor to another speaker. But, from a spiritual perspective, yielding is a sign of strength, an ability to trust God.
Think of the great freedom arising from yielding up the kind of self-pity that accompanies a variety of circumstances: past rejection, a friend’s betrayal, lost opportunity. Yet it isn’t easy to yield because we’re taught to stand our ground. Of course, sometimes intractability is a good thing, like resisting peer pressure to engage in unhealthy, unethical or illegal acts. But other times we hold on when we should be letting go. It’s about who’s right and who’s wrong rather than moving forward. We get comfortable with the pain.
John’s Gospel tells the story of a crippled man at the pool in Bethesda who held on to his position at the pool’s edge for 38 years. He couldn’t bring himself (literally and figuratively) to experience the curative powers of that water. And then Jesus came along and simply told him to “get up.” And he did (John 5:1-9). His trust in God overcame his self-pity.
American activist Dorothea Dix once said, “Our minds may now be likened to a garden, which will, if neglected, yield only weeds and thistles; but, if cultivated, will produce the most beautiful flowers, and the most delicious fruits.” In God’s economy, He is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). So yield and reap; don’t weep.
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