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By QuaWanna Bannarbie

On the instructions for the combination lock, it reads, “Just follow these steps.” Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you had such instructions every single day? Imagine waking up to a note on your mirror that says, “Unlock the great day ahead of you. Just follow these steps.” It is possible, in a way. Time alone with God is similar to standing before a mirror.

Some people take a journal or devotional notebook into prayer with them. I am not one of those people, not all the time. I can tell you that there have been many times that I wished I had brought paper and pen to my morning devotion because God was revealing so much to me, I really should have written it down. Recently, I was talking to God during my morning devotion and He shared something with me that I should have noted. I ended my time with God and got started with my day. I suddenly realized that I forgot what God spoke when I prayed. When I returned to our prayer room for my noon devotion time, I confessed to the Lord that I forgot His words and I repented for being disobedient to follow His instructions to bring a journal to my times in prayer. Just as I was confessing, I remembered what I heard in the morning. Immediately, I grabbed a sticky note (because I still had not brought a journal to prayer) and I wrote down the words, “small steps unlock things to come.” As those words flowed through my pen onto the sticky note, God recalled to me the things that I have said “yes” to in the past. Those affirmative responses have opened doors to other things.

There are some pretty significant “yes moments” in my life. I venture to say that we all have them. Those moments are the ones that required you to make a decision and that “yes” put you on a trajectory that you can see from where you were some time ago to where you are now. That “yes” to the things that aligned accordingly with the will of God for you can bring things into existence that were just waiting for you to open the door.

Response is key. I can’t take credit for that soulfully weighty statement. My pastor, Harold McPherson of Covenant Community Church, says this very often. Before now, I have understood that statement to mean that responses are critically important. It is true. I’ve also come to understand that response is a type of key which means that your responsive actions in combination or sequential order can unlock things that were otherwise out of reach until you began acting along the line of sequence.

God revealed to me the “small steps” that I have taken that have gotten me to where I am today. While I may not have noticed that I was moving in the process, each step had a purpose. Each “yes” plus corresponding action was necessary for me to make progress. A yes with your mouth should have a corresponding motion from your feet. Sometimes you may step small, and sometimes you may leap. A yes is not a small feat. It takes courage and awareness.

Consultants and gurus want to sell us the key to success in a “follow-the-steps” model. Perhaps I can save you a few steps. Talk to the Creator in the mirror and know your yes. If you sit down and assess every yes in your life, you may discover a pattern or a theme. You may even discover a line, although I suspect that it will be very jagged with some gaps in between. I hope you will also discover that each yes aligns with God’s will concerning you. Because being obedient to what He instructs us to do is how we unlock the sequence of things that will be our legacy.

QuaWanna Bannarbie is an adjunct professor of nonprofit leadership and management with Indiana Wesleyan University, National and Global. Connect with her via iamquawanna@thebiggerme.net or via Twitter @QNikki_Notes.