On gathering together & saying yes

Recently I was sitting in a meeting with some dear ladies who lead Bible study groups throughout the week for the women in our church when someone mentioned needing some editing assistance for a cookbook project. Apparently eyes focused on me from across the room because writing, editing, and hospitality are all things I dearly love. I don’t know what I was thinking about, but I nodded yes right as an older friend whispered, “Say no.” 

In 2025, I’m working on my yeses and nos. Honestly, I’m wanting to lay down some of my yeses because they’ve expanded to responsibilities beyond what I initially said yes to, but I don’t have the clarity I’m craving about how and when. Regardless, I’ve said yes to some new (small) things. 

I’m a quick decision maker, typically. I think that’s why the lack of clarity on what yeses need to become nos is hard for me. I know there are seasons for everything. I know other people can do what I do. I just don’t know if I lay down this or that. I don’t know whether I delegate or discard. 

But I’m going to keep living while I wait for clarity. And that means I said yes to a couple of friends recently – and I don’t regret it. 

I joke that my spiritual gifts are spreadsheets, group texts, and calendars. But, let’s be honest, it’s not a joke. We can call them gifts of administration or hospitality or communication or logistics. Whatever, give me some time and my MacBook and I can serve my people. 

So, one of those recent yeses. I have younger friends preparing to be missionaries in Southeast Asia. They assembled a prayer team, of which I’m apparently leading. I said yes because I love my friends, am gifted with the skills to organize a prayer team, and believe I’m called to serve in ways like this. 

I volunteered to make a taco bar at our house for our team’s first meeting. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when five couples and a single woman all from our big church gathered together, some meeting each other for the first time. But conversations are always better over Mexican rice and jalapeno ranch dip. 

I came away tasked with making a schedule for the prayer team and with a full heart. Having people gathered around my table that just barely didn’t fit us all, having conversations with new people who share my convictions and friends, and having this be how God called us to love our friends who are bravely following God’s lead is the deepest beauty of Christian commuity. 

With our people is the only way I know how to live in the tension of yes and no and maybe and not yet. 

Here in the new year as I anticipation some natural changes, I keep thinking about Ephesians 3:20-21: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen” (ESV).

I recently heard someone reference The Message version of that verse: “God can do anything, you know — far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. Glory to God in the church! Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus! Glory down all the generations! Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes!”

Working deeply and gently. Sometimes, eh, most of the time, I want a quick decision, a clear guide, and certainty that I’m doing exactly the right thing. But the right thing is believing God can – and will – do anything, far more than we can even imagine. He will give us abundant life, even when that doesn’t fit into our human desires. 

Glory to God for group texts and spreadsheets. Glory to God for real community with Christ as the foundation. Glory to God for the younger friends, the older friends, the friends that know me best, and the friends I don’t know yet.

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I believe we are better together, and, in fact, wrote a whole book about how God designed us that way. If this essay resonates with you, I’d encourage you check out Created for Communion: Discovering God’s Design for Biblical Friendship. There are some book-related, fun, free resources here.