I said, “No”; I should have said, “Yes”. Sometimes I did not want to be bothered; maybe, I was not really listening, preoccupied with my own thoughts. I grew up with a God who was represented as the “no” God. He said “no” to most every activity of life; if it was any fun, He was against it. Maybe that had become ingrained in me. A God like that was Life against life. I heard Dennis Kinlaw say, “God is not the enemy of our common joys.” It helped me; it still helps me. Self-denial that denies all joy is really morbid; it is life-hating. There are biblical “no’s”, but the area that God affirms is greater than the denial of one tree, in the garden, from which we must not eat.
“For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” (2 Corinthians:19-20 ESV)
