It’s Okay To Say No

“Give careful thought to the paths for your feet.” (Proverbs 4:26, NIV)

Megan was feeling quite overwhelmed. She thought that if she could just get better organized – if she could just get her ducks in a row – she wouldn’t feel so overwhelmed. To solve her problem, she hired an organizational expert. It didn’t take the organizational expert long to figure out that Megan’s problem wasn’t disorganized ducks. It was the fact that Megan said yes to every invitation and every request for her time. Megan lived an overwhelmed life because she just couldn’t say no. (The organizational expert taught her how!)

A lot of us are like Megan. Sometimes we’re overwhelmed because we’re overcommitted, and we’re overcommitted because we just can’t bring ourselves to say no. Why do we sabotage ourselves by saying yes when we should say no? Some common reasons are:

• We’re not clear about our priorities, or we’re not fully committed to them.
• We want someone’s approval.
• We cave under pressure from people who want us to volunteer, work overtime, or do something they want us to do.

When we’re unsure of our own priorities, or when we fall into people pleasing. We may feel pressured to say yes to things that put us in a time crunch or make commitments that aren’t wise or best for us. We need to learn to use the powerful, protective little word, no. Saying no announces our boundary: this is what we will do or what we won’t do, what we will allow or won’t allow. We never need to feel guilty about saying no to things that conflict with our priorities or commit us to something we’re uncomfortable with.

Saying no to something that’s not a priority often allows us to say yes to something that’s more important to us. However, when we’re not sure what our priorities are, or we don’t manage our time or our money well, we may default to saying yes simply because we don’t have a concrete reason for saying no. As Christ followers, we’re stewards of all the Lord has entrusted to us, including our time, money, talents, and relationships. When we, as stewards, “give careful thought to the paths for (our) feet” and say yes or no according to our priorities, we may find that life is a lot less overwhelming!

Questions to Ponder and Pray About

• Is it hard for you to say no to requests for your time, money, or other things? If so, why do you think you say yes when you would rather say no?
• Are you overwhelmed because of doing too many things for others that they are capable of doing for themselves?
• Do you typically “give careful thought” before saying yes or no? If not, why not?
• How might giving yourself permission to say no help relieve the feeling of being overwhelmed?