Why Going All In Meant Saying No to Something Good

Since deciding to go all in on helping Christians get God’s love from head to heart, I’ve said no to more good things in the eight weeks since my surgery than I said no to in the two years before it. Not bad things, and not close calls — genuinely good requests, from people I like, for work I know I could actually help with. Saying no to those has been harder than anything the recovery itself required.

C.H.E.W. with Me

New here? What is CHEW? — a 30-second practice that grows into a day woven with God’s love.

C – Clarity: The No I’m Bad at Isn’t the Obvious One

I’ve never struggled much to turn down something that’s clearly wrong for me — wrong fit, wrong timing, wrong fee, easy no. What I’ve struggled with for years is turning down something genuinely good, where I can see exactly how I’d help and exactly who’d benefit. Every one of those still feels like walking past someone who needed something I had in my hand. That feeling doesn’t go away just because I’ve decided what the one thing is. It just gets overruled, on purpose, every single time.

H – Hear: One Thing is Necessary

“But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.'” (Luke 10:41–42)

Jesus is a guest in Martha’s home; she is busy serving while her sister Mary sits at His feet listening. This is not a verse where Jesus tells Martha her serving is worthless. Hospitality was good — it just wasn’t the one necessary thing available in that room at that moment. Stay with what is said: many things, not many bad things. Martha’s exhaustion wasn’t coming from sin. It was coming from good work competing with the one thing that mattered more.

The Greek for “anxious,” merimnaō, carries the picture of being divided, pulled into pieces. The “portion” Mary chose, meris, is a share received, not produced. And listen to how He says it: her name twice, the way you speak to someone you love. The portion that will not be taken away is Christ Himself, and His love for Martha is already in His voice before she finishes a single task.

E – Exchange: What I Actually Gave Up, and What I Got Back

The list of good things I’ve turned down this season is longer than I expected: extra sessions I had the capacity to justify, and a couple of consulting asks on things I know well. None of them were wrong. All of them were competing for the blocked-off day my coach pushed me to protect for my Ph.D. work — the day I’d have quietly let something “important” eat if I hadn’t already decided it wasn’t up for negotiation. The relief didn’t come from having less on my plate. It came from not having to re-litigate the decision every time a new good option showed up. Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism argues that real prioritization subtracts — it doesn’t stack the new essential thing on top of everything else and call that focus. I’d said yes to good things for years and called it faithfulness; it was actually just an unwillingness to let anything go, dressed up as availability. When I really believed that God’s love for the people I said no to wasn’t diminished by my no, saying no stopped feeling like abandonment and started feeling like the only honest way to actually finish something.

Because God’s love is never rationed out based on how many good things you take on, how does that change what you’re willing to let go of in order to actually build what matters most?

W – Walk: Name One Good Thing to Let Go Of

Set a timer for sixty seconds and look at what’s actually on your plate this week — not the obvious clutter, the genuinely good commitments. Pick the one you’d justify keeping because you know you could help, the one competing with the thing that’s actually yours to finish. Then say no to it, out loud, to the person who asked — a call is best, a short message is enough — today. Let the discomfort be the evidence that you subtracted something real.

Closing question: What good yes is quietly costing you the one thing you meant to build?