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Let’s start the coalition of Yes!
This is a very powerful concept. It seems some days, we do live in a culture of No. I don’t want to live there. I want to be able to be able to say yes. Let’s start the coalition of Yes!!
It’s easy to join.
There are a million reasons to say no, but few reasons to stand up and say yes.
No requires just one objection, one defensible reason to avoid change. No has many allies–anyone who fears the future or stands to benefit from the status quo. And no is easy to say, because you actually don’t even need a reason.
No is an easy way to grab power, because with yes comes responsibility, but no is the easy way to block action, to exert the privilege of your position to slow things down.
No comes from fear and greed and, most of all, a shortage of openness and attention. You don’t have to pay attention or do the math or role play the outcomes in order to join the coalition that would rather things stay as they are (because they’ve chosen not to do the hard work of imagining how they might be).
And yet the coalition of No keeps losing. We live in a world of yes, where possibility and innovation and the willingness to care often triumph over the masses that would rather it all just quieted down and went back to normal.
Yes is the new normal. And just in time.
The Yes of Jesus
God makes a promise. Jesus says YES to it. The Holy Spirit makes it happen in us. Jesus is the great “So Be It” of God. So when Jesus says YES and we agree with Him, the power comes forth. God affirms us in Him. He makes it a sure thing. God puts the YES of Jesus in us. He has sealed His pledge with His Spirit.
This is the complete promise of a beginning in the new plan. His goal will be achieved. That is the YES of Jesus.
Flip flop?
Oh my goodness. Am I as true to my word as God is to His?
God doesn’t flip flop when He promises me something. God isn’t glib in His approach to what He says to me. God doesn’t waffle or waiver. Not at all. Not ever. God is always faithful to His word.
May I be as true to my word as God is to His.
Are you now going to accuse me of being flip with my promises because it didn’t work out? Do you think I talk out of both sides of my mouth—a glib yes one moment, a glib no the next? Well, you’re wrong. I try to be as true to my word as God is to his. Our word to you wasn’t a careless yes canceled by an indifferent no. How could it be? When Silas and Timothy and I proclaimed the Son of God among you, did you pick up on any yes-and-no, on-again, off-again waffling? Wasn’t it a clean, strong Yes? 2 Corinthians 1:17-19
A greater YES!! An easy NO!!
How easy is it to get distracted? Well, some days pretty easy. My enemy sends me a great message. Let’s just talk. Come and meet me. What is my response?
Nehemiah was on a mission from God. He was doing some amazing stuff. It was no small thing. He had almost finished but there was still a few things left to do. How did he respond to the distraction of the enemy? Just say NO!!!
So …. when we are centered in the will of God, may we respond that our Yes to God is more important that anything and be able to say, “No, I cannot come down.”
Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates, then Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, “Come, let us meet together at Chephirim in the plain of Ono.” But they were planning to harm me. So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?” Nehemiah 6:1-3
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