The morning air inside The Shepherds Cafe carried that early-January stillness—soft jazz low enough to disappear into the clink of mugs, a few tired greetings at the counter, and the slow hush of people easing back into routine. Outside, winter light pressed against the windows like a pale hand, bright enough to expose every smudge, gentle enough to make the street feel unhurried. The calendar had turned, but the human heart, as usual, was taking its time.
Elijah arrived first. He chose the table nearest the glass, the one that gave him a full view of the sidewalk and the parked cars crusted with frost. His glasses caught a thin line of light as he settled in, and his short white beard made him look like a man who had learned that wisdom often arrives quietly, and usually after you’ve paid for it.
Jeremiah came in next, shoulders squared as if the cold had followed him all the way to the door. An older Black man with a salt-and-pepper beard, he moved with the steadiness of someone who had been tested and had stopped pretending he could outsmart the test. He greeted Elijah with a nod, slid into the seat across from him, and wrapped his hands around the mug like he was anchoring himself in something simple and real.
Barbara arrived last, scarf tucked close around her neck, her short blonde-gray bob neat but not fussy. Her expression carried warmth, but not the kind that excused foolishness. Barbara’s kindness had a spine. She didn’t speak gently so she could avoid honesty. She spoke gently because she believed honesty should help, not harm.
They ordered the usual—coffee for Elijah, something hot and steady for Jeremiah, chai for Barbara—and for a moment they sat without rushing the conversation. In that pause there was something almost reverent, like they were letting the quiet set the tone before they filled it with words.
Barbara broke the silence first. “I don’t like resolutions,” she said, lifting her mug and watching the steam curl.
Elijah’s mouth moved toward a smile but didn’t quite arrive. “Most resolutions are theater,” he said. “A performance people do for themselves.”
Jeremiah’s eyes stayed on the window. A man outside scraped frost from a windshield with a credit card, working hard to fix a problem he could have prevented with five minutes the night before. “People like January,” Jeremiah said, “because they can promise a future version of themselves obedience, and feel righteous in advance.”
Barbara’s eyebrows rose. “So you’re both in rare form today.”
“Not rare,” Elijah replied. “Just sober.”
Barbara leaned forward slightly. “Alright. If we’re going to be sober, let’s be practical. What’s the real issue?”
Elijah tapped the table once, like he was marking the beginning of a thought. “The issue,” he said, “is that many believers have trained themselves to say ‘no’ by default.”
Barbara tilted her head. “No to what?”
“No to the next clear thing God has already made plain,” Elijah said. “Not by announcing rebellion—by delaying. By postponing. By keeping obedience on a shelf as a future project. It’s a quiet no.”
Jeremiah nodded slowly. “And a quiet no still counts.”
Barbara’s eyes narrowed in the way they did when she was listening hard. “So what would you call the opposite?”
Elijah didn’t hesitate. “A faster yes.”
Jeremiah’s voice came low and steady. “A yes that doesn’t wait for comfort.”
Barbara held that thought for a moment, then said, “That sounds nice—until you remember yes usually costs something.”
Elijah’s gaze lifted, and he met her eyes. “Exactly,” he said. “That’s the real test. Not whether you agree with God. Not whether you admire what He said. The test is whether you say yes when yes costs something.”
Jeremiah’s hands tightened around his mug. “Because if yes is cheap,” he said, “it’s not really obedience. It’s convenience wearing a halo.”
Barbara sat back, letting the words settle. Around them, The Shepherds Cafe continued its normal rhythm—orders called out softly, chairs scooting, a couple laughing a little too loud at a table near the wall, as if volume could protect them from seriousness. But at their table, the mood had sharpened, not into heaviness, but into clarity.
Elijah turned his cup slowly. “Most believers,” he said, “don’t need a new year. They need a new default answer.”
Barbara nodded once. “Yes.”
Jeremiah looked at her. “And not just yes to God in the abstract,” he said. “Yes to God in real life. Yes that touches how you treat people. Yes that reshapes your schedule. Yes that forces you to stop hiding behind ‘I’m busy’ when what you mean is ‘I’m unwilling.’”
Barbara’s voice softened, but it didn’t lose its edge. “That’s where it hits,” she said. “Because we’ll say yes to church events we like, and no to the parts of obedience that expose us.”
Elijah’s eyes stayed calm. “The parts that cost our pride,” he said.
Jeremiah added, “The parts that cost our comfort.”
Barbara looked down into her chai like she could see her own heart in the surface. “The parts that cost our preferred story about ourselves,” she said quietly.
Elijah nodded, as if she had just named the exact thing he’d been circling. “That’s why the title of a lot of people’s Christian life is not ‘obedience,’” he said. “It’s ‘delay.’ They don’t openly refuse the Lord. They just keep Him waiting.”
Jeremiah’s jaw set slightly. “And deferred obedience,” he said, “doesn’t stay neutral. Over time it turns into a disobedience you get used to.”
Barbara lifted her eyes. “So what does yes look like this week?” she asked. “Not a principle. A practice.”
Elijah answered as if he had already decided. “It looks like one person,” he said. “One relationship you stop treating like background noise. One soul you stop assuming someone else will reach. One brother or sister you stop keeping at arm’s length because you don’t want the awkwardness.”
Jeremiah nodded. “And it looks like cooperation,” he said. “Because a lot of people don’t want to work with the saints—they want the saints to work around them. They’ll say yes to God’s word as long as it doesn’t require patience with people.”
Barbara’s expression tightened. “That’s real,” she said. “We’ll claim we love the church, but our first response to conflict is to withdraw, criticize, or go silent.”
Elijah’s voice remained even, but it carried weight. “And Scripture won’t let us spiritualize isolation,” he said. “The Lord didn’t save us into solo faith. He added us to His people.”
Jeremiah’s gaze held steady. “And He tied obedience to love,” he said. “Not love as sentiment—love as action. Love that costs something.”
Barbara leaned forward again. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s name it. What does yes cost?”
Elijah didn’t speak quickly. He spoke plainly. “Yes costs control,” he said. “Because when you obey God, you don’t get to micromanage outcomes. You do what’s right and leave the results with Him.”
Jeremiah followed. “Yes costs pride,” he said. “Because a lot of obedience is admitting you were wrong, or that you’ve been lazy, or that you’ve been afraid.”
Barbara added, “Yes costs comfort,” she said. “Because you’ll have to do things when you don’t feel like it, and you won’t always get thanked.”
Elijah nodded again. “And sometimes yes costs your reputation,” he said. “Especially when obedience means standing for truth without being ugly about it, and people decide you’re the villain because you won’t join their drift.”
Jeremiah’s voice lowered. “But yes also costs something else,” he said. “It costs excuses.”
Barbara gave a short, humorless laugh. “That’s the one nobody wants to pay.”
Elijah looked at them both. “We’ve become experts at dressing excuses in spiritual language,” he said. “We call fear ‘discernment.’ We call avoidance ‘keeping the peace.’ We call selfishness ‘boundaries.’ Sometimes boundaries are real. Sometimes they’re just a holy name slapped on a cowardly decision.”
Barbara’s eyes widened slightly, not offended—more like she respected the bluntness. “Tell it like it is,” she said.
Jeremiah glanced toward the window again, where the man finally got his windshield clear and climbed into the car, relieved but still behind schedule. “That’s most of us,” Jeremiah said. “We spend our lives scraping frost off consequences.”
Barbara nodded slowly. “So the question isn’t whether we’ve heard God’s word,” she said. “The question is whether we’ll say yes to it when it costs.”
Elijah’s voice softened, but it didn’t weaken. “That’s why the Christian life isn’t built on grand intentions,” he said. “It’s built on daily yeses. Yes to prayer when you’d rather scroll. Yes to Scripture when you’d rather be entertained. Yes to reconciliation when you’d rather be right. Yes to serving saints when you’d rather stay invisible.”
Jeremiah spoke with quiet clarity. “And yes to disciple-making,” he said, “when you’d rather keep the faith private.”
Barbara didn’t flinch. “Say it,” she told them. “Stop circling it.”
Jeremiah nodded. “Jesus didn’t make ‘Go’ a suggestion,” he said. Then, clean and steady, he quoted: “‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations… teaching them to observe all that I commanded you’” (Matthew 28:19–20, NASB). He paused. “Not just teaching them to understand it,” he said. “Teaching them to obey it.”
Barbara’s lips pressed together. “And that kind of yes requires people,” she said. “Not just books and sermons.”
Elijah nodded. “Exactly,” he said. “It requires working with brothers and sisters—real ones, with quirks and blind spots and different styles. It requires patience. It requires humility. It requires love that doesn’t quit when it’s inconvenient.”
Jeremiah set his mug down. “And if we’re honest,” he said, “some believers say yes to God’s word until it involves dealing with God’s people.”
Barbara’s gaze dropped. “That’s convicting,” she admitted. “Because it’s easier to talk about unity than to practice it.”
Elijah’s voice remained measured. “That’s because unity costs,” he said. “It costs ego. It costs the demand to be first. It costs the habit of assuming the worst. Unity isn’t created by pretending problems don’t exist. Unity is created by choosing righteousness and love in the middle of problems.”
Barbara breathed out slowly. “So,” she said, “what’s the next yes?”
Elijah didn’t dodge. “We should each name ours,” he said. “Not for show. For accountability.”
Barbara pointed at Elijah with a small tilt of her mug. “You first.”
Elijah paused, then spoke like a man setting down something heavy. “There’s a brother I’ve meant to call,” he said. “I told myself I was giving him space. But if I’m honest, I’ve been avoiding discomfort. I’m calling him today.”
Jeremiah nodded once. “There’s a neighbor I keep greeting,” he said, “but I’ve never moved past small talk. I’ve been waiting for him to ask spiritual questions, like I’m a salesman waiting for a customer to wander in. That’s lazy. I’m going to ask him if he’ll read a Gospel with me.”
Barbara held her mug a little tighter. “Mine is going to sting,” she said. “I need to apologize to someone—and I need to do it without adding a lecture. No defenses. No explanations. Just repentance.”
Elijah’s face eased with something like relief. “That,” he said, “is what yes looks like when it costs.”
Jeremiah’s eyes stayed steady. “And we should pray,” he said, “before we talk ourselves out of it.”
Barbara nodded immediately. “Now,” she said. “Not later.”
So there, at their table inside The Shepherds Cafe, they bowed their heads—three older saints refusing to let a new year become a fresh excuse. And the prayer wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t impressive. It was plain and honest, the kind of prayer heaven recognizes: confession without decoration, resolve without bravado, faith without theater.
Outside, the winter light brightened slightly, not dramatically, but enough to make the frost on the parked cars glitter like scattered salt. It was a small change, almost nothing. But that’s how obedience often begins—quiet, costly, and real.
Elijah lifted his head first. “If January means anything,” he said, “it’s not that we felt inspired. It’s that we said yes.”
Jeremiah nodded. “And we kept saying yes,” he added, “even when it cost.”
Barbara looked between them and gave a small, firm smile. “Because Scripture doesn’t call us to admire,” she said. “It calls us to do.”
And in the spirit of that truth, the day carried its final word like a simple command: “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves” (James 1:22, NASB).
If this year is going to be different, it won’t be because the calendar turned. It will be because believers stopped waiting to become the kind of people who obey—and began saying yes to God’s word, yes to His people, and yes to the cost that always comes with real faithfulness.