Sometimes The Best Deal Is No Deal

Sometimes the Best Deal Is No Deal

“Sometimes the best deal is no deal at all.” Those were the words of my attorney and dear friend, Arty Howard. Arty had walked with me and a team of six others through a long nine-month negotiation process with our church’s next-door neighbor, our city government. We each had land contiguous to the other, and we were considering an exchange that could have been mutually beneficial. At the eleventh hour, though, we chose to back away from the table. This was a hard moment after all that we had invested in the negotiation process.

But this moment was one I am thankful for because I believe with all of my heart it was the right decision. Walking away from something after giving an entire season of your life to it seems hard, and maybe even foolish. But forcing something because of being shortsighted certainly is foolish. I believe that many young couples force marriages because neither person in the relationship has the courage to disappoint the other. Years later, they finally verbalize what they believed during the engagement period—they should have called it off.

Sometimes it takes more courage to pull away from something than it does to continue down a road because of what you have invested to get to this point. Forced relationships, business partnerships, or land exchanges aren’t advisable if what lies before you ends in disappointment for all parties.

Proverbs 14:8 states, “The prudent understand where they are going, but fools deceive themselves.”

Have the courage to pull the plug. Know where you are going, and remember, as my buddy Arty says, “Sometimes the best deal is no deal at all.”

The prudent understand where they are going, but fools deceive themselves.

Proverbs 14:8