The Legacy of Ordinary Yeses

Summer of Celebration Series …

Celebrating the Faithfulness of God in Ordinary Places

If you have followed my journey for very long, you know I spend a lot of time talking about missionaries.

I travel internationally. I tell stories from South Africa and Germany. I write about pastors, church leaders, feeding programs, orphanages, mission teams, and the faithfulness of God around the world.

But some of the most important missionary work I have ever witnessed happened in the quiet of an ordinary morning.

A few weeks ago, I was feeding my then five-week-old grandson, Judah, his morning bottle.

The house was quiet.

The sun was barely up.

Only the three of us were awake - me, Judah and Abram.

His older brother, Abram, wandered over.

Just ten days shy of his second birthday, I asked him a simple question.

“Would you like to pray for Judah?”

Without hesitation, he stepped closer, placed his hand gently on his baby brother, bowed his head, and began to pray.

When I realized what was happening, I didn’t want to miss the moment.  I was holding the bottle with one hand and grabbing my phone with the other.  I wanted to show mom some of the fruit of her labors.

This picture is the result.

It is not perfect.

But it captures something I never want to forget.

Because this is why I live.

The Faithfulness No One Sees

As much as I love this picture, the truth is that this moment did not begin that morning.

It began long before.

It began with a mother who has faithfully done the unseen work of discipleship.

The daily prayers.

The bedtime prayers.

The meal-time prayers.

The Sunday mornings when getting one toddler and a newborn ready for church feels more like an endurance event than a spiritual experience.

The long nights.

The diapers.

The exhaustion.

The consistency.

Week after week, she has continued to say yes.

Not to recognition.

Not to applause.

Not to a platform.

But to the holy work of raising children who know Jesus.

Today, Abram knows words like pastor right alongside mine and I want.

He prays for people because he has watched people pray.

He bows his head because someone taught him that talking to God matters.

He lays hands on others because he has seen faith lived out before him.

This picture may show a toddler praying, but it also tells the story of a mother who kept planting seeds when no one was watching.

And I have had the privilege of planting alongside her.

When Abram was born, I felt the Lord tell me to call him “Man of God.”

Later, “Joy Boy” became another name that fit him perfectly because joy seems to spill out of him wherever he goes.

Before he was ten months old, I had read the entire Bible aloud to him.

Now Judah is five weeks old and has already completed the Torah, with more being read every day.

None of this was part of some grand strategy.

I am not nearly that smart.

His mother and I simply kept saying yes to the things God placed in front of us.

Read the Bible.

Pray.

Go to church.

Speak life.

Prepare even when you do not understand.

Trust God with the results.

Preparing for What We Cannot Yet See

When Abram was born, I said that he could go to South Africa with me when he could lay hands on people and pray.  I anticipated him being four or five years old. 

So I was surprised when, at eleven months old, he laid hands on someone for the first time and prayed.

Something in my spirit took notice.

When he turned one year old, we obtained his passport.

Not because we had plans.

Not because we had tickets.

Not because we knew what God was doing.

Simply because we felt the Lord prompting us to prepare.

So we took the next step.

One small act of obedience.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

To this day, I do not know why.

I do not know what God is preparing him for.

I do not know where those little feet may someday carry the gospel.

I only know that God often asks us to prepare long before He explains.

And our job is not always to understand.

Sometimes our job is simply to say yes.

One Generation to Another

The morning after I took this picture, something happened that moved me even more.

Nobody prompted him.

Nobody reminded him.

Nobody asked.

It was the three of us awake again when Abram walked over to Judah, laid his hand on him, and prayed.

All on his own.

What began as something modeled had become something owned.

And suddenly I realized I was watching Psalm 145:4 unfold before my eyes:

"One generation shall commend Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts."

My role is different from Austi’s role.

A mother and grandmother do not carry the same assignment.

But they can carry the same mission.

She is faithfully building a home where Jesus is known.

I have the privilege of reinforcing what is being built.

She plants.

I water.

And together we trust God for the harvest.

That morning was not a celebration of grandma.

It was not a celebration of a remarkable toddler.

It was not even a celebration of good parenting.

It was a celebration of God’s faithfulness across generations.

The same God who pursued me is pursuing my daughter.

The same God who pursued my daughter is already pursuing her sons.

And for a brief moment, He allowed us to see it.

The Legacy of Ordinary Yeses

Many of you reading this are in difficult seasons.

You are exhausted.

You are caring for children, grandchildren, aging parents, struggling marriages, difficult relationships, financial pressures, health concerns, or responsibilities that never seem to end.

You may wonder if the small things matter.

I want to encourage you that they do.

Every prayer matters.

Every Bible story matters.

Every act of obedience matters.

Every seed matters.

We rarely get to see the harvest while we are planting.

But every once in a while, God pulls back the curtain and lets us glimpse what He is doing.

This picture was one of those moments for me.

A reminder that God is faithful.

A reminder that obedience bears fruit.

A reminder that raising up the next generation is Kingdom work.

And a reminder that sometimes the greatest missionaries we will ever influence are sitting at our own kitchen table.

Years from now, I do not know where God will take Abram or Judah. I do not know why He prompted a passport at one year old or what He is preparing them for. I only know what He placed in front of us today.

Read the Bible.

Pray.

Go to church.

Love people.

Speak life.

Trust God.

The hero of this story is not a grandmother, a mother, or even a little boy with his hand on his brother's head.

The hero is God, who takes thousands of ordinary acts of obedience and turns them into a legacy.

And every once in a while, He gives us a glimpse of what He is building.

"One generation shall commend Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts." — Psalm 145:4

Celebration Moment

This summer, I am celebrating God's faithfulness—not because we knew what we were doing, but because He did.

Sometimes the greatest victories are not found across an ocean.

Sometimes they are found in the quiet moments when one little boy places his hand on his baby brother and prays.

And in that moment, God reminds us that He is building a legacy through ordinary, daily faithfulness.