Monday Morning Musing again. If you’ve missed the details of what goes on here each week feel free to check them out.
The Quote:
Learn to say ‘no’ to the good so you can say ‘yes’ to the best.
— John C. Maxwell
The Question:To be able to say ‘yes’ to the best, what do you need to say ‘no’ to? Anything you can say ‘no’ to this week to free yourself up?
About Kristen
I am just learning to do this. It is so hard to say no to certain people in my life…but I am learning….because I want the best.
I totally stink at this! My heart gets pulled in so many directions…
A great question…one I am going to think about! Thanks for making me think about what is most important!
This sort of fits in with what Christy wrote about on her blog today, and it all sort of fits in with this work God’s doing in my heart lately, about priorities and values and what I want to pour my life into and what is just a big time suck. There are people that I have needed to let go of, tv viewing time (as much as it pains me, and heaven help me when The Office and 30 Rock return in a month), facebook time when it has nothing to do with building or nurturing relationships with people I care about(though I don’t think all time of facebook is wasted), time spent playing around on the internet. It’s all about coming to God and asking Him to help me sort out the unneccessary stuff of my life. And one things I’ve found is some of those unneccessary things were crutches and things I really thought I loved (endless hours on facebook and watching tv), but the more time I’ve spent on the things that really matter, the more I realized I was just feeding my laziness and calling it love. But don’t get me wrong, I still do both, I’ve just prioritized them differently and given them less time when I used to give them all of my free time.
I’d really love to say “no” to housecleaning, but I am pretty sure that is NOT what you are talking about!
Actually, today I said “no” to some extra training at work this week – it has nothing to do with what I will be focusing on starting next week, and while it would be good to know if I ever need to use it in the summers, it is info that can easily be passed on by my co-workers when I need it. I knew I just couldn’t add in a full day of this when I really need to be moving forward on that other stuff! It was a huge relief to be able to do so!
No….to housework! I’m all about that. But really, I need to be saying yes to that more. I’ve said no to some people lately…hurt their feelings a little because I usually say yes, but it freed me up just to be able to take a breath and relax. I said no to myself and put myself in a position to glimpse heaven and that was the best.
This is desperately important when so often our lives are consumed with busy-ness. If we say yes to all the things we can do, we stretch ourselves so thinly that we end up doing nothing well. I have struggles with my health so have frequently had to say ‘no’ out of necessity. It’s not easy and some things I long to be able to do! However it has taught me the importance of focussing on what God has called me to do, not what everyone else thinks I should do.
Thanks for the reminder!
Lately I’ve been spending lots of time with friends that are not encouraging my relationship with God. They’re pulling me down, and I’ve known it for a long time. But here’s the thing…I complain about the, I go on and on about how I wish I had better friends and blah blah blah…but when they call for a get together, I’m the first one who says sure!
I really need to say No to the people who lead me away from God. I can be friends with them in order to influence them…I can always be friendly. But I need to learn to say NO to spending time with a group of people who put a strain on my heart because they don’t love my King like I do.
As for yes, I need to say yes to falling in love with my heavenly Father. I need to say yes to living for Him and to being the girl God’s called me to be.