Suze Orman said something great! “You say yes out of fear versus no out of love.” I loved this statement and it hit my heart so powerfully that I wanted to share it with you.

When she was talking it was in terms of financial decisions but it really does apply in all areas of our life doesn’t it? Those of us who are mothers usually know the answer to our children’s questions of us, but because we often are afraid of the confrontation, and because we don’t want to hear the whining and the crying, and God forbid they get mad at us, we tend to say yes out of fear of what may happen or because it’s just easier.

When it comes to our spouse or boyfriend we say yes out of fear that he’ll be disappointed or angry or won’t let us then do something we want to do. We are scared to say no even when we know it’s the right thing to do.

When it comes to ourselves, we say yes to things we don’t really want to do because we are afraid of what others may think of us. So to protect our reputation with others we are willing to lose our reputation with ourselves. Is that crazy or what? We say yes out of fear rather than no out of love even when it adversely affects our life!

Isn’t it interesting that our yes out of fear is more important than our love for the other person? The fact that we are willing to compromise what we know is right to do to appease others, when if LOVE truly reigns in our life, then it would show up in our firm NO truly says a lot about us.

How many times in our lives have we said yes instead of facing the fact that we really didn’t want to? How many times have we said no to something we’ve really believed in, only to cave in because the other person got mad? It hit me that maybe we don’t love as deep as we think we do. It hits me that maybe how we are perceived is more important that our moral standard.

This isn’t just something in the big picture items; these belief systems erode in the little things first. Michele Cossey, a mother, who was charged with buying her minor son weapons and pleaded guilty a few years ago, just wanted her son’s depression to ease and she wanted to make him happy. Maybe we aren’t buying guns but we are trying to buy ourselves out of confrontation of unpleasant things.

Think about your yes and your no answers. Were they truly lead by your heart? Were they led by the selfish flesh part of us? We say to each other, “Tell me what you really think”, but the fact is we don’t really want to know. What we are truly saying is, “Tell me what I want to hear”. So then in turn we tell others what they want to hear.

Today challenge yourself to examine yourself realistically. Ask yourself; do you say yes to things out of fear when you know that you should say no out of love? If you do, why do you do it? I am going to consciously pay attention to what my heart is saying about a situation without thinking about the confrontation that may come along with it. Then I am going to pray and ask the Lord to help guide me to the proper response! How about you?