Learn How to Say No

“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.”

—TONY BLAIR

But let your yes be [a simple] yes, and your no be [a simple] no, so that you may not sin and fall under condemnation.

—James 5:12

People don’t like the word no, do they? They’ll grin from ear to ear when you say yes to something, but you won’t see many smiles when they hear you say no. It’s natural to want to be loved and accepted—we all want that—but that tendency makes it very easy to fall into the trap of being a people pleaser. This greatly complicates life, however, because different people want and expect a variety of things from us as individuals. Ever hear the phrase “You can’t please all the people all the time”? People pleasers quickly find, in order to give everyone everything they want and achieve an end result which keeps them happy, somewhere along the way a hefty price is required—we pay, and lose ourselves.

God created each of us in a unique way; we are individuals who have a right to live our own lives. This does not mean we never adapt and adjust ourselves and our desires in order to help or make others happy, but it does mean we cannot continue to please people at the expense of pleasing God. He is not pleased when we miss fulfilling our own destiny because we’re living a frustrated life attempting to keep everyone around us satisfied, but ignoring His desires for us.

I have personally struggled greatly with this. As someone who was sexually abused as a child, I grew up often feeling cast off and devalued. I hated the emotional pain of rejection so much, that I desperately wanted acceptance and was willing to pay just about any price to get it. It didn’t take me long to discover, though, that saying yes when I really wanted to say no was stealing my life from me. I resented the very people I was trying to keep happy, and I learned in the long run they were not really true friends.

People who are only willing to be happy with you when they can control you are using you. Allowing them to do so not only hurts you, but it also ultimately hurts them. Sadly, most people will do whatever we allow them to do; this seems to be the nature of the fleshly carnal man. Godly confrontation and a refusal to be controlled by people is healthy for all involved and eventually builds great relationships that are fair to both parties.

Make a decision to please God above everything else. Put His will before your own and before the will of other people. If you truly feel in your heart God wants you to say yes, then say it and stick to it; but if you feel He’s directing you to say no, then say no and stick to that as well. God always supplies the grace and whatever else is needed to enable us to do whatever He asks us to do—giving us the tools to say no with ease and simplicity. Complication and struggle, just by their mere presence in our lives can often indicate we are out of the will of God. If our hearts say no while our mouths say yes out of fear of rejection, we cannot expect God to help us. He is not obligated to finish anything He did not author.

You are not alone as you learn to say no. Ask God for His supernatural strength and wisdom to guide you toward more simple decision making and feel confident you are following His lead.