“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30  HCSB

You ever have a to-do list so long that you fear you may never complete it? And then don’t you love it when someone sweetly says, “When you have time, would you please do this for me?” And of course, you want to scream, “I will never have time! I have a list that will never be done and you just piled something else on it!” But instead, you sweetly say, “Sure, I’ll be glad to.” Because as a good little church member we feel that we should just suck it up and get it done. Who needs to sleep right? Wrong! When we take on more than we can handle we do not do our best as if we are working for the Lord (Colossians 3:23).

I had told you a couple days ago that I would share a couple of things I took away from the conference that I attended last Friday. Yesterday we talked about leading family members to the Lord. The other thing I learned is that just because something is a godly thing to do it doesn’t mean that you are the one meant to do it. You can say no, even when the church needs something.

I have been learning this the hard way. When we don’t say no then we end up overwhelmed and resenting the things that we do, even those that we used to enjoy. 2 Corinthians 9:7 says, “Each one must give as he had decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” Whether we are giving our money or our talents or our time, if we are doing so grudgingly we are not pleasing the Lord.

The question was asked of a preacher’s wife who was in her mid 30s about balancing time between family and church obligations. In her bio in the program, she said that her first ministry was her family. In her answer on the panel, she said that she has learned to say no to some things.

When we are new Christians we are on fire for the Lord and we want to help spread His word in any way that we can. We have this zeal and this passion, but I have found that if we overextend ourselves this passion will eventually be replaced by burnout. I know because I’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. I think the problem most of us have, or at least it was this way for me, is we are excited and passionate about our church and our church family so we just dig in and do what we can do. However, our lives are constantly changing. We have things going on in our personal lives with our biological families that often demand a great deal of our time and attention. And sometimes God calls us into the ministry of caring for a loved one who is sick. But if we continue to strive to do it all, we will do none of it well and we will resent all of it due to burnout.

Today, I’m not saying to just start saying no to everything. But I am saying to pray about it and listen to the word that God has for you. That word may be no. I almost titled this blog, just say no, but that’s not what I’m advocating here. Honestly, I think there are a lot of people in our churches that just say no, when perhaps they should be saying yes.  I have often heard that 80 per cent of the work in any given church is done by 20 per cent of the membership and having been in several different churches during the course of my life, I have found this to be true. There are those of you out there warming pews that may be able to help out with the ministry of the church and provide a much needed break for those that are overworked.

So, today, I encourage you to pray. Talk to God about what it is that He would have you to do and what it is that He would not have you to do. When I was asked to teach the three and four year old’s in AWANA, that was way outside of my comfort zone and I agreed to pray about it. I was fairly certain that God would tell me to say no. Quite honestly I came from 25 years in law enforcement, not exactly a good fit for three and four year old’s right? But God thought otherwise and He just would not let me say no. I will admit that I ran things a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop, but I truly enjoyed the experience. There were some situations that broke my heart because there were things that these tiny little people were going through at such a tender age. They eagerly shared them when I took prayer request. It was so rewarding to see them learn to pray and give their problems to God. Watching them learn to quote scripture was awesome. They inspired me more than I inspired them, I’m sure.

I’m not asking you to stop everything you are doing. I am not asking you to take on every committee and task at the church. I am asking you to pray about what it is that God wants you to do. His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He has good plans for you (Jeremiah 29:11). Trust in Him to lead and guide you in when to say yes and when to say no.

Have a great day!