No!” she shouted at me and then grinned. She was finally talking and had discovered her new favorite word. I’m sure my reaction didn’t help, as I paused to look at her. How do they latch on to this one word so quickly? “No, no, no!” she said with a scowl and then another grin. She knew it was a game. A game where she felt free to express her one-year-old opinion and I proceeded to express my parental authority over her. “Yes,” I replied as I shoveled in the peas, the airplane game having gone flying figuratively out the window with her first “No!” After wiping my daughter’s face and releasing her from her high chair prison, I started to work cleaning up the pea-covered floor around where she had been seated. And as I worked I began thinking about the word “no” and wondered when it became such a bad word. A word that I myself seem to really struggle with. While my daughter seems to delight in using the word, and using it loudly, I, on the other hand, find it to be one of the most difficult words to utter.
For churchgoing women, finding the courage to say no when we are asked to serve is often incredibly difficult. And particularly in the busier seasons for a church community, like Christmas, we have made saying, “No, I’m sorry I can’t take on one more thing, volunteer for one more thing, be ‘guilted’ into doing one more thing,” the equivalent of displeasing God. But God is hungry for our hearts, not our works. We serve the Kingdom best when we have broken spirits for God’s people, but not when we have broken bodies and minds because of weariness and fatigue. In Christendom, we often wear that fatigue and weariness like a badge of honor or a big Y embroidered on the front of our blouses. “I say yes to everything, see what I’m doing for God!” We have allowed the enemy to subtly whisper to us, Your worth is in your doing, not your being. We fall into the Martha Trap.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38–42)
We proudly proclaim to God, “See, Lord, look at all I am doing for You. I love You best because I arrived at church at 6:00 a.m. to fix the coffee, I greeted at the door before all three services, I volunteered in the nursery for two services, and the third one I helped clean the toilets in the preschool area. I know I didn’t have a chance to spend time with You in worship today, but I love You best because I do for You.”
I personally relate so much to Martha, doing, doing, doing for the Lord. But what about being for Him, like Mary was. Just being. Sitting at His feet in worshipful listening. Why does being still and quiet at His feet often bring about so much fear? Is it because He might tell us no? No to the hour-, minute-, second-filling activities that prevent us from truly spending time with Him? That He might ask us to say no? No to one more worthy cause or church activity or committee?
Is it something deeper than even that? Are we afraid that in our quiet we may be found out for what we really are? Sinners without all the answers. Women who, in reality, crave the approval of other people over God. Moms and wives trying to bind our families together with ropes of activities, good deeds, and a spot on the VBS planning committee instead of with prayer, faith, and trust in the Holy Spirit.
God wants you broken to His will, not broken because of exhaustion from taking on one more activity out of a false sense of guilt. A broken vessel full of holes cannot hold what God pours into you, and therefore cannot be poured into someone else. We are called to be a vessel, but a whole, healthy one so we can be ready to be used as He sees fit. “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21 ESV).
We are called to be a vessel, but a whole, healthy one so we can be ready to be used as He sees fit.
God will call you to His purposes, not man’s purposes. He will gently remind you when to say yes and when to say no. Be slow to answer with a yes to every opportunity that comes your way, to every committee you are asked to serve on, or to every event you are cajoled to participate in; and quick to listen for the Lord’s direction, even if it means we say no. For with every request you quickly answer yes to without seeking God’s will first, you may be inadvertently saying no to something wonderful God has planned for your life. I’m choosing to stop viewing “no” as a bad word, but to see it instead as a word that can free me to be the vessel for God’s purpose that He wants me to be.
