Yes and No

"If we cannot say no, then our yes means nothing." - Peter Block

Saying no can be one of the most difficult things for a human being. The desire to please, be accepted, be loved, be known almost inevitably feels linked to saying yes to others and opportunities. Yet what we find often in saying yes to everything, is that we are spread so thin across a variety of relationships and situations, that the life that were were seeking to find in saying yes to these things has avoided us entirely. Instead of experiencing the fullness of life we so desire and were created for, we traipse around as pedestrians in our own existence, exhausted and perpetually disappointed. We must learn to say no, so that when we say yes, it means something. And what it would mean, is that I know what I want, and what I don't, what will and won't fulfill the deepest desires of my heart. To discover these things is a journey of first saying no, that then leads us to a place of saying yes to the things that truly matter.

It is only through the spirit led willingness to say no to something or someone, experiencing either death of those lesser desires, or discovering the true desire underneath the outward manifestation that we are saying yes to, that the begins to teach us what it is we really want and were made for. It is only when we have a sense of this truth, that we then can begin to make decisions that have volition born of spirit led conviction.

Proverbs 19:22 -"What a man desires is unfailing love, better to be poor than a liar."

Without this understanding, we will crush everyone and everything in our lives with the weight of the eternal desire set in our hearts by God for his unfailing love. This then frees us to say yes to others and opportunities from a different posture. A posture of desire not demand, of openness not expectation, of peace not anxiety, of adventure not obstacles, of love not fear.