The Value of the Word “No”

 

“For me, the hardest word in the English language is … NO.
I would like to be able to say yes to everyone and everything,
but obedience to Christ requires me at times to say NO.
Like the gardener pruning the vine, I must constantly trim away
unnecessary activities if new life is to spring forth.”

‘SFRIDAY!

This week has been quite the month!

Not in the way comedians say about towns that didn’t impress them, “I spent a week there one night”. This week was one of those where you look back and can’t believe all that’s happened in just the last five or six days. This morning feels like when you look back down the hill you just climbed and realize “that was steeper than I thought!”.

I wrote on the white board on the fridge this morning

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Lord, I want to thank You for your sustenance this week. For safety in all the miles traveled. For a car that behaved itself away from home. For clarity of thought. For patience with people when I didn’t have much of my own (some of them were drivers I shared the asphalt with for a few miles). For ministry experience that helped me with perspective on several things as the week flew by.

I believe it was Andrew Murray who found it useful to pray three-word prayers throughout his day. (Sometimes that’s all the time we have.) He would identify what he needed from the Lord at that point in time and simply ask for it: Your peace, Lord. Your comfort, Lord. Your rest, Lord. and so on. There are times to slow down, stop, and spend some quiet hours with the Lord in prayer. But there are others when you pray on the run – or on the fly. The key for those times is hanging on the nail tagged Isaiah 40.31:

They that wait upon the Lord
shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles
they shall run and not be weary
and they shall walk and not faint.

(and the gospel chorus adds)

Teach me, Lord, Teach me, Lord, to wait.

It’s a great truth, especially when you see it happen right there in the mirror!

Prune – For Even More Fruit

Well, it’s a bit out of character for me, but I turned a “Yes” into a “No thank you” this morning. Less than a week ago I accepted an invitation to contribute to a neat blog here on WordPress and today I politely stepped away. Fickle, aren’t I?

No, not at all. It’s called stewardship.

If you’ve trusted Christ as Savior, you see life differently than most. Each of us have been given certain amounts of money, time, and skills/gifts/abilities during our lifetime and our Lord expects us to invest those things as part of how we serve Him . (More on that in Matthew 25 and Luke 19.) I see myself as pretty much a “two-talent-guy” but I long to hear His words and see His smile “Well-done, Phil. Bravissimo!” as much as the five-talent Christians I know. I’m focused. Intense (maybe too intense sometimes) but that’s the way “Pistol” Pete Meravich played for Boston, it’s how Mike Singletary played for Chicago, it’s how my spiritual heroes lived, and that’s how I live. I want to see the greatest possible return on my life. For GOD’s glory.

When I was thirteen I decided it was time for me to “quit wasting God’s time” as I put it then. Life began to come into focus for me. That was almost four decades ago, and the further down life’s road I go, the stronger I feel about that. I’ve endured some set-backs, even some self-induced —I am SO grateful for His mercy and grace!— but He’s calling me ever-closer, pruning away anything He needs to, even good things, so my branch, though it’s only one branch, is heavy with fruit.

…every branch that does bear fruit

He prunes

so that it will be even more fruitful.

John 15.2

When I work WITH Him in that process life goes much-much better than when I don’t.
God is the Master Gardener. And get this: He’s taking responsibility for my fruitfulness!
Now if that doesn’t infuse a guy with confidence, I don’t know what does!

Selah—

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Are you cooperating with Him? I hope so — it’s the only way to go.