Many years ago, I learned that my default answer whenever people asked me how I was doing was always “Busy.” As men, I believe we take pride in being busy. But I often wonder if being busy and saying yes to everything is actually hindering our success in moving forward.
Saying “Yes” To Everything But Going Nowhere
Today I find many men are always busy. They are just moving and moving, going from place to place, meeting to meeting, and task to task without really knowing where they are heading in life.
You may busy, yet in some sense, life is just passing you by because you just say yes to everything. You let being busy give you a sense of being successful, yet you haven’t really moved forward in years.
You may busy, yet in some sense, life is just passing you by because you just say yes to everything.
What are you doing with your life?
What do you want most from life?
Where are you heading to?
That’s a common question we are asked when we’re finishing up high school, but when was the last time you really asked that question as an adult?
It’s a deep question yet a simple one.
It’s dangerous yet adventurous.
It’s confusing yet defining.
It will shake us, yet it will move us into something new.
Even Jesus Said “No”
In the Bible, we see Jesus was always heading somewhere as he was selective on what he said yes to. More so, what he said no to was just as important. When you read the gospels, we see Jesus is heading to Jerusalem because there is a greater plan at work.
Luke 9 – “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”
Luke 13 – “Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem.”
Luke 17 – “Now, on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.”
Luke 18 – Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem.”
Luke 19 – “After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”
It’s not just that he’s just going to a city, but he had a path he was on, and he had a purpose in the direction he was going. To say yes to that direction, he would have to say no to other opportunities that may have taken him away from that plan. Especially since he knew his time was valuable yet limited.
Jesus was very popular in the first century. It seemed like every city and village he went to on his way to Jerusalem had the multitudes show up with request after request. The reality is he had many opportunities, many open doors, many more good things he could have done in those places.
One of the things we oversee is that Jesus would often say no. He did this in order to keep moving forward to head towards something greater. He didn’t preach in every synagogue, he didn’t heal every person who followed him, and he didn’t sit down with every person who wanted a conversation with Him.
Although I believe Jesus would have wanted to take those opportunities, his goal wasn’t to just be busy. Over and over, you see in the Bible that he left the multitudes because he couldn’t stay where he was forever. Sometimes, Jesus had to say no in order to truly say yes to something more.
When you look forward this year, what do you need to start saying no to, which will help direct you and your path forward? Sometimes saying no to many things allows us to succeed in saying yes to the greater things.
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