{"id":22332,"date":"1995-10-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1995-10-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/1995\/10\/01\/fine-art-of-saying-no\/"},"modified":"1995-10-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"1995-10-01T00:00:00","slug":"fine-art-of-saying-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/fine-art-of-saying-no\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fine Art of Saying No"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the greatest life management skill is knowing when to say yes and when to say no. All kinds of opportunities and decisions confront us. We can&#39;t say yes to all of them. Neither do we want to be ungracious, saying no simply for our own convenience.<\/p>\n\n<p>For many of us, saying no doesn&#39;t come naturally. Why?<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\t<li>We want to appear busy. We complain about busyness, but in our fast-track world, we assume we&#39;re supposed to have two things to do for every minute we have. One helpful piece of advice I got was &quot;Opportunity is not a mandate.&quot; God doesn&#39;t expect me to take every opportunity. If I know who I am, what my gifts are, and what my calling is, I can determine which needs I can say yes to and which needs I must leave for others.<\/li>\n\n\t<li>We want to be liked. Some people do things they shouldn&#39;t because they think saying no will make someone stop liking them. As a businessman, I decided I would rather be respected than liked. If people find out they can threaten you with &quot;I won&#39;t like you,&quot; you lose their respect and much of your time.<\/li>\n\n\t<li>We want to earn God&#39;s favor. People sometimes assume God is impressed by our activity. Sometimes preachers unintentionally foster this by saying &quot;God has no hands but yours,&quot; which undermines the concept of salvation by grace.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Our best efforts don&#39;t come from frantic activity but from concentrated attention. Just as Christ went off to pray and Paul spent time in the desert, I make no apologies for scheduling time when I am unavailable. I go off by myself with nothing but two or three things I need to think about. I can&#39;t do my best without occasionally saying no to telephones and interruptions.<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead1\">How to decide yea or nay<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here&#39;s a checklist I use to decide whether to say yes or no to a request.<\/p>\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\t<li>Is this consistent with my priorities? For many years, every January 1, I would identify goals for the year. Each morning I ask, &quot;What&#39;s the most important thing for me to accomplish today?&quot;<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Is this within my area of competence? Because I&#39;m in business, people assume I know marketing, accounting, or research. I don&#39;t. If something is outside my area of expertise, I&#39;m quick to say, &quot;I&#39;m sorry, others can help you better than I.&quot;<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Is this something the person should do himself? Some people ask you to do their work for them. When God has given them a task, why should I change God&#39;s plan?<\/li>\n\n\t<li>What do trusted friends say? When in doubt, find someone to talk with freely. A colleague had some decisions to make and came to our house to visit. Later he said, &quot;That time really turned me around.&quot; Like a racehorse, he needed to get off the track, have a friend walk with him, and cool down.<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead1\">How to say no gracefully<\/h2>\n\n<p>Here are a few principles for declining a request.<\/p>\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\t<li>Make sure your motive is to say no to the proposition, not to the person. It&#39;s possible to encourage the person while denying the request. Once in a group, I offered a suggestion, but a sharp colleague saw a weakness in it. His reply was tattooed on my soul: &quot;Fred, that&#39;s not one of your better ideas.&quot; He managed to encourage me while saying no to my idea. At times, I&#39;ll say it this way: &quot;Would you give me permission to say no?&quot;<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Respond in terms of the best interests of the person asking. Once when I was asked to speak somewhere, I said, &quot;You want a good talk, don&#39;t you?&quot; Of course. &quot;If I don&#39;t do well, I&#39;d embarrass both of us. I&#39;m afraid I wouldn&#39;t have sufficient time to prepare that week.&quot;<\/li>\n\n\t<li>Defer creatively. Humor often helps. I might say, &quot;I&#39;d like to do that, but I will have been out six nights that week. Would you be willing to call my wife and explain this to her?&quot; Or, &quot;You know, I could make a donation, but that would mean I&#39;d be late with my rent. Would you mind calling my landlord and explain to him that I was behind in my charitable giving and to please wait on the rent?&quot;<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>In short, saying no is one way we develop maturity. Saying no, with grace, is a skill worth developing.<\/p>\n\n<p>Copyright &copy; 1995 by the author or Christianity Today\/<em class=\"citation\">Leadership Journal<\/em>.\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/le\/help\/permissionsprivacy\/permissions.html#answer\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\" rel=\"noopener\">Click here<\/a> for reprint information on <em class=\"citation\">Leadership Journal<\/em>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Perhaps the greatest life management skill is knowing when to say yes and when to say no. All kinds of opportunities and decisions confront us. We can&#39;t say yes to all of them. Neither do we want to be ungracious, saying no simply for our own convenience. For many of us, saying no doesn&#39;t come <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/content\/fine-art-of-saying-no\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":22333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"tax_ctp_authors":[1585],"tax_ctp_books":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[154],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[131],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[643,644,156],"tax_ctp_tags":[3535,3790,4708,5279],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-22332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-fred-smith","tax_publications-1995-leadership-journal","tax_publications-fall_1995-leadership-journal","tax_publications-leadership-journal","tax_ctp_tags-busyness","tax_ctp_tags-discernment","tax_ctp_tags-priorities","tax_ctp_tags-wisdom"],"acf":{"scripture_references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This 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