The Disease To Please

Interview from The 700 Club

Have you ever been in a situation where you just can’t say ‘no’ and you don’t want to say ‘yes’? If so, you are not alone. Here’s the good news – you don’t have to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because, according to Lysa TerKeurst, there’s a third option.

Lysa, you say in your book, ‘we must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please,’ how do you know the difference between those two things?

When Jesus called us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul and to love other people, I really think He calls us to pay attention in how we can demonstrate that attitude of love all throughout our day. I think a lot of times we want these big  directional signs from God, like ‘what is your will for our lives?’ God just wants us to pay attention. But I know that when I am caught up in the disease to please and I’m saying yes to too much, it doesn’t make me wonder woman, it makes me a worn-out woman!

What do you do when you’ve said what you know is the right response to someone – whether it’s yes or no – and they’re offended by the choice that you’ve made?

If you say ‘no’ to someone and they’re offended because you’ve said ‘no,’ then they’re eventually going to be offended even if you say ‘yes’ to this, so you might as well go ahead and experience the disappointment now, but keep your life in a good place. I wrote in The Best Yes that when a woman lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule, she’ll ache with the sadness of an underwhelmed soul. And so overwhelmed schedule equals underwhelmed soul. We’ve got to flip that. I’m hoping that The Best Yes can enter into conversations and everyone can start using this language so it’s not so offensive when we have to say ‘no’ to someone.

“I believe that if we want to be known as wise women weʼve got to tuck wisdom into the sacred places of our lives.”

You have lots of wise counsel in your book but one of the things that you say is that wisdom needs to be practiced. What do you mean by that?

I believe that if we want to be known as wise women we’ve got to tuck wisdom into the sacred places of our lives. In other words, we’ve got to tuck wisdom into the things we say and the things we don’t say. We’ve got to tuck wisdom into the things we do and the things we don’t do. We’ve got to tuck wisdom into the places we go and the places we don’t go. In Philippians, it talks about how knowledge leads to insight and insight leads to discernment. So, we’ve got to get knowledge by acquiring the truth, insight by applying that truth and discernment by listening to the Holy Spirit reminders as we make decisions.

It sounds like you’re talking about intentionally evaluating your life, the call of God upon your life and everything that lies before you.

A lot of times I would catch myself saying that I want to serve God in that way when I find more time or make more time. But here’s the reality – no one in the history of the world has ever found more or made more time! We’ve got to get proactive about making sure that if you know God is calling you to do this assignment, mark out on your schedule that this is an appointment with God and I’m not going to let anything else interfere with that. It’s so important.

If that resonates with you, then we’d love to pray with you. Our prayer centre is open for your calls weekdays from 8am–10am, 12pm–3pm, 5:30pm–7:30pm. Why not call us on 0300 561 0700?

Prince of Peace

Everlasting Father

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Image from Lysa TerKeurst's Facebook

Lysa TerKeurst is president of Proverbs 31 Ministries and the New York Times best-selling author of Uninvited, The Best Yes, Unglued, Made to Crave, and 16 other books.

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