Learning to Say No

"Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is kept safe." Proverbs 29:25

Do you have trouble saying no?

I dread saying yes to some things and I still cannot make myself say no to them, and if you have ever felt that particular kind of powerlessness, where the word is right there in your mouth and it simply will not come out, then you know exactly what I am talking about. Somebody asks. And you hear yourself agreeing. And you are already tired.

It always comes back to the same fear. What would they think of me if I said no.

So we end up buying whatever anyone is selling. We say yes to the errand and the committee and the favor and the thing we did not want, and we do it because we would rather be exhausted than be disliked, and we tell ourselves that this is what love looks like.

God says no to us all the time.

He does. He says it often, and he says it plainly, and he has said it to me about things I wanted very badly and things I was certain were good.

Does that mean he does not love us?

We know it does not. God is love, and sometimes love is precisely the thing that says no. No to what would harm you. No to what would hollow you out. No to the fourteenth thing you agreed to this month that is going to cost you your evening with your children.

Which means a no is not the absence of love. A no can be the shape love takes when it can see further down the road than you can.

So the question underneath your yes is not whether you are being kind.

It is whether you actually believe that.