When God Asks for Our Yes | Raising The Next Generation Through Everyday Yeses

“Raise them in the way of the Lord,” a family friend—pastor and mother—said with a forlorn heart.

I saw the confusion cross my husband’s face.
Six months earlier, we had moved across the country to a city where I knew a handful of people—mostly from a decade ago—and my husband knew no one. We moved on faith and… yeah, just faith. No worldly common sense suggested this was a good idea. Yet God had made it unmistakably clear. He opened doors, closed others, and moved mountains—specifically the Appalachian ones—into our backyard.

Now we sat in the kitchen of my youth pastor from twenty years ago, listening as he spoke about his children—the same kids I had once mentored in youth group. I heard stories that broke my heart because I could relate to both sides: a mother full of wisdom, and children full of aspirations.

When I Thought I Knew Better

I was twenty once, too.
I had my rebellious years. I thought I could fix myself. I believed God was an option—not the only way. I thought I knew how to make the right choices for my life.

I got married in those years.
I bought my first house.
I got pregnant.

But I refused to raise a child there. I knew something had to change.

So I stopped trying to make the right choices for myself and decided to let God make them instead.

I asked Him for direction.

Not long after, my mom called and said, “I think you’re supposed to move to where your old pastor is.”

“Then God can tell me,” I laughed—because that sounded horrible.

Two months later, on Mother’s Day, He did.

I told my husband I believed we were supposed to move 800 miles to a city neither of us had ever been to. He asked why, and I didn’t really have an answer. I told him I had heard stories of a Spirit-filled children’s ministry. I thought our son needed that.

He said God would have to tell him Himself.

Fair enough.

Surrender Looks Different for Each of Us

And God did.

Over the next ninety days, every objection my husband raised was met with either an open door in the new city or a closed one where we were. It was brutal. Having your life slowly push you out of itself is painful.

Jobs where we were once respected disappeared. New ones appeared elsewhere.
A home we once loved no longer seemed to fit.
Friends we once leaned on felt distant—yet prayers poured in from people I hadn’t spoken to in years.

Even our church felt uncomfortable, except for a small group—many of whom had also moved across the country for ministry. They encouraged us to go.

Still, even as I encouraged my husband to listen, I rebelled—just more quietly.

I told God I would go once there was a job for me. One condition. How wrong could a job be?

So, He gave me one.

A few months later, I was called into a conference room. I hadn’t seen the “big boss” in a while and assumed this would be the perfect time to share that I was—surprise—newly pregnant.

Instead, I was fired. I was told to collect my things, pick up my son, and leave.

The Portion God Gives

Months later, sitting at that kitchen table, I listened to a mother speak tenderly about her children—moving away, getting married, wanting children. The milestones I had chased in rebellion, and that God was now redeeming quickly through surrender, were the same things her children were pursuing.

As we drove home that night, the Scripture surfaced again: Raise them in the way of the Lord.

My husband is, in many ways, a first-generation believer. He had a praying grandmother, but he wasn’t raised knowing a loving, powerful God who wants to walk alongside your life.

And as we drove, the Lord impressed something on my heart: we are only responsible for what He gives us the grace to carry—and that portion changes with time.

My husband needed open and closed doors to trust that surrender was good. His faith stretched that far.

I needed a job to surrender—even though God knew that job had no place in His plan for this season. Still, He gave me grace for where I was.

Living on Mission, Right Where We Are

I looked at my son sleeping in his car seat—the next generation of missionary.

I looked at my husband driving us home—also the next generation of missionary.

And then I realized that included me, fresh from rebellion, growing in faith, learning what it means to say yes again and again, serving the mission field directly in front of me.

I decided then and there to live my life on mission.

I decided to surrender—hopefully without conditions.
To pray and fast.
To do the foolish things the Lord asks of us.

Because He is wise.
Because He is loving.
Because He is a good Father who knows how to fulfill the desires of our hearts in ways that are sustainable, redemptive, and rooted in Him.