rest, part three

3. rest: the discipline of selective disappointment

In the beginning...of ministry, I said "yes" to other's requests for a variety of reasons:

• I felt I was supposed to say "yes"
• I wanted to honor the people who asked me to say "yes"
• I thought something would go undone [gasp] if I didn't say "yes"
• I wanted people to consider me a team player or to simply value me for helping out
• I reasoned that if I'm able to meet a need, I must therefore be called to meet that need
  

But when all these reasons layered over one another, I soon found myself running on empty.

Once God graciously began helping me to distinguish between need, ability, season, and calling...the next big challenge for me personally was paying the price of others' disappointment when I started to respectfully say "no, thank you" to opportunities and requests.

The discipline of selective disappointment goes something like this:

• people are always going to have an opinion about how you should be using your time and talents
• if you are here, some will think you should be there; if you're doing this, some will think you should be doing that...
• so since people are going to be disappointed ANYWAY, I vote we take authority in how that disappointment is distributed

When I'm faced with someone's disappointment, I remind myself of the following:

• need is a voice that never says "enough"
• the greatest gift I can give anyone will come from the overflow of a healthy, well-nurtured relationship with Jesus and my family
• every time I say "no" I give someone else the opportunity to say "yes" and that's a good thing