Spring Break was a couple of weeks ago, and while many were taking trips, our family decided to stick close to home. We did some fun things, but I wanted K to have something special since a lot of his friends were taking trips. So, I decided to have a “Yes Day.”

This idea comes from a super cute movie starring Jennifer Garner that came out a few years ago. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it! It’s fun, clean and JG is precious in all things. In the movie, the kids are complaining because they get told “no” all the time, so mom devises a yes day where she has to say yes to the kids’ requests. There are some ground rules, and the ones we decided to follow were:

1 – Nothing that alters our life. We can’t be adopting all the puppies or tearing down any walls or committing any crimes.

2- There is a money limit. I still need to be able to say yes to paying bills when this day is over. Once the money is gone for the day it’s gone, and the rest of the “yes” activities have to be free.

I told K about Yes Day several days before school let out and he was beyond excited! He spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make Yes Day happen sooner, and thinking about all the things he wanted to do.

Finally, the big day arrived. He tested the truth of the “yes” by asking for ice cream for breakfast and was shaking with giddiness when I did, in fact, say yes, and started scooping.

The day was a lot of fun! We went to the park and played, read books at the library, watched Mario cartoons, painted and did crafts, had a family movie night with pizza and ended with a sleepover in the big bed.

K had a great time and is already asking when we can do another one. I enjoyed the day too. It felt good to say yes! However, he also didn’t ask for anything I wouldn’t have said yes to anyway, except maybe the ice cream for breakfast and the amount of Mario cartoons he watched.

He only spent a single dollar of the money I had set aside and that was on a bubble wand I probably would have gotten him anyway. I was anticipating trampoline parks and bounce houses and toy aisles at Wal-Mart, donut runs and giant bottomless bowls of ice cream.

I commented the next day how surprised I was that he didn’t ask for these things and he said, “I didn’t really think about it.”

K was happy to just to feel like he had control over his world. Kids get told what to do and when to do it so often I’m sure a day of yeses, even if they are easy ones, feels like the best day ever.

I think there is some beauty in the fact that my kid didn’t want big things, that he was happy and content with simple things.

K asked me what I would do with a yes day and the first things that came to mind were a leisurely cup of coffee, a nap and some quiet space to read. Also, not big things. All things I could probably make happen if I really tried.

I was telling a friend about the Yes Day and how surprised my husband and I were at the underwhelming nature of the day, so different from the movie, ha!

I told her, “I guess he just didn’t know he could ask for big things.”

And then God cleared his throat at me, the way he does sometimes when the Holy Spirit is talking to me and I’m about to miss it.

His children don’t know they can ask for big things.

God wants to give his children big Yeses, but often we don’t ask because we don’t know we can, or maybe we are afraid.

I’m sure you’ve heard or read the verse in Matthew chapter 7 that says “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

The Message version says it well with, “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need.”

The church I grew up in talked a lot about asking for things that are within God’s will, and yes, obviously we want the things we are asking for to be things in line with what God wants for us. But, I think as a kid, and into adulthood, this translated into me just saying, “Whatever your will is God, let that be done.” And never really thinking about what I really wanted or desired.

It also turns out I wasn’t really thinking about what God really wanted or desired either. It was just a cop out prayer because it felt better to say that than to ask for something not in His will and disappoint him.

But, I also know as a parent, that if K had defaulted his Yes Day to me it wouldn’t have been any fun. I was delighted to give him yeses. I have to believe that God, who is the perfect parent, would delight even more.

But God never asked me to just blindly yield to His will without thought or consideration. If that’s what He wanted there was no point in creation, the Garden….. there was no point in Jesus.

I mean, if I think about it, I was a little disappointed K didn’t ask for some big things on our Yes Day. I was grateful to not have to haul myself to the expensive, over-stimulating, anxiety-producing trampoline park, but I also missed how excited he would have been to ask for that and get to go right then, not next week or some other time, but the immediate yes.

God desires relationship and it’s in that relationship that we get to know Him and get better at discernment. In relationship, our will more naturally begins to line up with His. We don’t have to try as hard to live in His will because it happens as we get closer to Him. Our dreams and desires begin to more readily match up to his.

AND, we are still humans and have our individual hopes and dreams. He created us to have these and loves it when we live in them, and ask for them.

And I think He loves it when we ask big.

Maybe that’s another reason I don’t ask for big things. When the yes is not immediate, it feels like a no. It’s hard when the Creator exists in a space with no time and the creation exists in a place ruled by time.

I can feel God nudging me going, “It’s ok, go ahead and ask me for the big thing.”

Thinking about that makes me squirm and feel weird though. It’s easier to default to the “whatever your will is” prayer.

There is beauty and intimacy in the simple yeses. K’s day centered around things we could do together and as a family, that’s what he really wants. The Lord wants that from us too. And, He never asked us to play it safe. He doesn’t just want the simple requests. He wants the vulnerability and depth of relationship that comes from the BIG ASKS. He wants to give BIG YESES.

I think we will do another yes day this summer. This time, I may give K the gentle reminder that the Lord gave me:

It’s ok to ask for big things. Better yet, it’s desired.