Yielding

I recently had to renew my driver’s license. All I had to do was to take the eye exam and identify the various road signs. It was easy enough since they provide you with a pamphlet of the signs to study and they also provide you with a considerable time to wait! What do you do while you wait? You study the signs!

It’s interesting the difference between the signs you study on the pamphlet and the signs they show you on the test. On the pamphlet the signs have words and symbols that help you identify them. On the test the words and symbols on some of the signs are missing! I missed one of these signs. I called it a warning sign. The tester told me it was a school crossing sign. After I finished (and passed!) the test I looked at the pamphlet and discovered that a school crossing sign and a school zone sign without the symbols look exactly alike! I wanted to go back and ask the tester how she knew it was a school crossing sign and not a school zone sign since without the pictures you can’t tell the difference! I mean, she could have been wrong! However, better judgment prevailed and I was happy to leave with my new driver’s license.

One sign, that was also missing words, was easy for me to identify. It was the YIELD sign. It has a distinctive shape and color. Yield means to concede to or give right-of-way. It is a warning sign that is designed to help keep us out of trouble. Depending on whom we yield to can determine if we avoid trouble or invite it!

God gave Cain a warning sign that instructed him to yield to what is right rather than how he felt. Either choice required him to yield, to sin or to God. Our choices put us in a position of yielding as well, either to sin or to God. Peter wrote, “…for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” Whatever we yield to is our master. Paul wrote, “Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” (Rom 6:16-18NIV)

Make certain that you can identify and read the signs correctly so you yield properly! You’ll never go wrong by choosing obedience to God’s word!

Drive safely!
Larry