“Yes, Lord — Anything.”

When Jesus Asks,   “Anything?”

Learning to Surrender,   Listen,   and Answer      “Yes,   Sir.”

The Ascension of Jesus is one of the most powerful passages in Scripture for understanding what I believe Centering Prayer is really about.

These final scenes are not simply the closing chapter of Jesus’ earthly ministry.

They are a doorway.

Jesus has risen.

He appears to His disciples.

He speaks to them about the Kingdom of God.

He promises the Holy Spirit.

He prepares them to continue His work.

Then He is taken from their sight.

But before we go any further,

there is something extraordinary in Luke that we should not miss.

“Peace Be With You”

After His resurrection,

Jesus suddenly stands among His disciples and says:

“Peace be with you.”

They are terrified.

They think they are seeing a ghost.

Honestly,

if someone I had watched die suddenly appeared in the room,

I am not sure my first response would be:

“Wonderful.      Please come in.”

The disciples were startled.

They doubted.

They needed reassurance.

Jesus gave it to them.

Then He did something that has become extremely important to my understanding of Centering Prayer:

“He opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.”

Think about that.

The Scriptures were already there.

The words had not changed.

Their understanding changed.

That matters enormously to me.

I do not want merely to read words about God.

I want Jesus to open my heart and mind so I can understand what those words mean for the way I live.

I want to listen.

I want to surrender.

I want to serve.

That is Centering Prayer as I have come to understand it.

From Seeing Jesus to Serving Jesus

Acts tells us that Jesus appeared to His disciples over a period of forty days

and:

“spoke about the Kingdom of God.”

Then He told them something extremely important:

Wait.

Do not rush out and try to accomplish the mission through your own strength.

The Holy Spirit would come upon them.

Then they would receive power to become His witnesses.

That pattern speaks deeply to me:

I must listen before acting.

I must receive before giving.

I must let God lead before deciding where I am going.

That is almost the exact opposite of how I lived for seventy years.

For most of my life,

my management structure was very simple:

Bill makes the plans.

Bill executes the plans.

Bill worries about the plans.

Bill makes new plans when the old plans fail.

It was a remarkably efficient system for producing stress.

Centering Prayer reversed the organization chart.

Now I begin with:

“God,      what are Your plans?”

“How may I serve You today?”

That is a radically different way to live.

“The Lord Worked With Them”

Mark gives us another beautiful detail.

Jesus tells His followers:

“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.”

Then Jesus is taken into heaven.

The disciples go out.

They preach.

They serve.

But the final verse says:

“the Lord worked with them.”

I love that.

They worked.

Jesus worked with them.

That is exactly how I understand service in Christ’s Kingdom.

We do not replace Jesus.

We do not become Jesus.

We do not manufacture God’s power ourselves.

We serve.

Jesus leads.

We listen.

Jesus teaches.

We obey,

and the Lord will work with each of us.

Jesus works through His people according to His will.

That is why Centering Prayer is not merely meditation to me.

It is preparation for service.

Stop Staring at the Sky

There is another part of the Ascension story that makes me smile.

Jesus is taken up.

A cloud hides Him from their sight.

And the disciples just stand there...

staring into the sky.

I probably would have been right there with them.

After all,

if you just watched Jesus disappear into a cloud,

clearing the afternoon schedule seems perfectly reasonable.

Then two men dressed in white appear and ask:

“Why do you stand here looking into the sky?”

That question has become tremendously meaningful to me.

I do not want to spend my life staring upward for Jesus

while overlooking the Holy Spirit’s presence,      thats here and now,

and Christ’s call to serve      today.

Jesus had already given the disciples their assignment.

The question was not:

How long can you stare at the clouds?

The question was:

Will you obey?

The Kingdom Needs Love Today

For me,

the Christian life is not primarily about waiting for the day when I might begin serving Christ.

The Kingdom calls me today.

Someone needs love today.

Someone needs forgiveness today.

Someone needs kindness today.

Someone needs encouragement today.

Someone needs to encounter the fruit of the Spirit through one of God’s children today.

That brings me to one of the most important moments of my own life.

The Day I Told Jesus,   “Anything”

Early in my walk with Jesus,

I was practicing Centering Prayer during an extremely painful period.

A group I belonged to had turned against me.

I believed people had lied,

cheated,

and acted dishonestly to hurt me.

I felt betrayed.

And I was miserable.

So I carried that pain into prayer.

One evening,

I sat in the back pew of my church,

my head bowed,

quietly practicing Centering Prayer.

And something happened that I still remember vividly.

I experienced an overwhelming sorrow.

I understood it as God allowing me to glimpse,

in some tiny way,

the sorrow caused when His children choose:

greed,

selfishness,

money,

pride,

and their own wills

instead of His love.

Suddenly,

my own hurt looked different.

I had been concentrating on:

how badly they had hurt me.

Now I found myself thinking about:

how much I had hurt God.

That realization broke my heart.

Tears rolled down my face.

And sometime afterward,

during Centering Prayer,

I told Jesus that I would do anything I could to help relieve that sorrow.

Anything.

That is a wonderfully courageous word

when you are the one volunteering it.

Apparently,

Jesus noticed.

“Anything?”

The word-thought that came into my mind was a question:

“Anything?”

One word.

That was all.

And suddenly my magnificent offer developed consequences.

I remember being stunned.

Anything?

Now I had to think about what I had just said.

Did I really mean it?

There is a considerable difference between telling God:

“Use me however You want.”

and discovering that He may actually take you seriously.

My mind immediately began running.

What if I was being deceived?

What if this was not God?

What if I had opened myself to something I should not trust?

My old fears came rushing back.

And then,

while I was wrestling with those questions,

I experienced something completely different.

Love

An overwhelming sense of   God’s unconditional love   washed over me.

I experienced it almost like warmth moving through me.

An interior wave of love that I understood as coming from God.

This answered all my doubts and questions about who was asking the question,      Anything?

And then I answered.

Two words:

“Yes.      Anything.”

That was a turning point in my life.

From “Why Me?”    to    “Yes,   Sir.”

For most of my life,

if someone handed me an apparently impossible assignment,

I could produce a rational explanation of why it could not be done.

I had the knowledge.

Logic.

Reasons.

Supporting documents.

And if necessary,

I could probably have added charts.

But,      dealing with the Lord changed the equation.

I discovered that surrendering to God is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

When I become convinced through:

prayer,

Scripture,

discernment,

and the fruit of God’s love

that Jesus is calling me to serve,

I do not to begin with:

“Lord,      let me explain the logistical difficulties with Your proposal.”

I begin with:

“Yes,      sir.”

That does not mean abandoning discernment.

It does not mean assuming every thought entering my mind came from God.

And it certainly does not mean that my interpretation of every spiritual experience is automatically correct.

It means that after prayerful discernment,

I want God’s will to outrank mine at odds of God's millions to my zero.

That is total surrender.

Surrender Turned Out to Be Freedom

Strangely enough,

surrender has given me more freedom than seventy years of trying to control everything myself.

For decades,

I wanted to run my own life.

Now I wake up with excitement,      and I can't wait to find out what God wants me to do today.

Apparently retirement was not exactly the arrangement I thought it was.

I had pictured:

less responsibility,

more rest,

perhaps a few projects I selected myself.

God apparently looked at my retirement plans and said:

“Stop looking at the sky Billy Boy.      Get to work.

I've put you exactly where I want you.”

Building the Kingdom One   “Yes” at a Time

This is where the Ascension story becomes personal for me.

Jesus gave His followers a mission.

He promised them the Holy Spirit.

He told them they would receive power.

Then He sent them out.

And they went.

Mark ends by saying:

“the Lord worked with them.”

That is how I want to live.

I do not want to build:

Bill’s kingdom

and then ask Jesus to bless the construction project.

I want to serve:

Christ’s Kingdom.

For me,

that requires Centering Prayer.

Because I cannot intentionally follow Jesus

unless I become quiet enough to listen for His directions.

So every morning,

I return to the same place.

I surrender my plans.

I surrender my ego.

I surrender my money.

I surrender my ambitions.

I surrender my fears.

I surrender my assumptions about what God ought to ask me to do.

Then I ask:

“God,      what plans do You have for me today?”

“How may I serve You?”

And then...

I listen.

I’m Only a Tiny Part of the Plan

During these later years of my life,

I have witnessed things that I regard as God’s work      —

things I never would have believed any human being could accomplish alone.

But that is precisely the point.

I am not the plan.

I am not the Kingdom.

I am not the power.

I am not the glory.

I am only a tiny pinpoint in something much larger than myself.

And I am thrilled to have been invited along for the ride.

I do not want the credit.

The plan is:

God’s.

The Kingdom is:

God’s.

The power is:

God’s.

The glory is:

God’s.

I am simply delighted that I finally reported for duty.

And that,

when the question came,

I answered:

“Yes,   sir.”

The Question Changed

For seventy years,

when I thought about God at all,

I often wanted Him to fit somewhere inside my plans.

Centering Prayer turned the question around.

Instead of asking:

“Jesus,      how will You fit into what I want to do?”

I began asking:

“Jesus,   where do I fit inside Your plans for Your Kingdom?”

That is a very different prayer.

One makes God an assistant to my agenda.

The other makes me a servant in His.

And when I believe I hear the answer,

I hope I have enough:

faith,

humility,

trust,

and love

to give Him the simplest answer I know:

“Yes,   sir.”

Don’t Just Stand There Looking Up

Christ’s Kingdom is not built primarily by people standing around looking toward heaven

and wondering what God might do someday.

Perhaps it is built through God’s children listening to the Holy Spirit

and allowing Christ to work through them today.

One act of love.

One act of forgiveness.

One act of kindness.

One act of service.

One surrendered will.

One quiet act of obedience.

One:

“Yes, sir.”

at a time.

So tomorrow morning,

before my feet touch the floor,

I will become still.

I will surrender my plans.

I will quiet my mind.

And I will ask:

“Lord Jesus...      how may I serve You today?”

Then I will listen.

And if the answer seems difficult,

unexpected,

or impossible,

I get excited because I know God is going to do the heavy lifting.      And,      I've already given Him my answer.

“Yes,   sir.”

Questions for prayer:
          What do these passages reveal about God?
          What response does it ask of me?
          Is the impression I receive consistent with the character and teaching of Jesus?
          What loving and faithful action should follow?

Daily prayer:

How may I serve You this day?”