Getting to know No
Have you ever noticed in the Old Testament that occasionally, not often, but definitely more than once, that people, kings and prophets mostly, are asked to kill the bad guy and that when they don’t follow through, the next thing you see is that they themselves, the non-killers, are found in the desert being devoured by lions? They do everything they’re supposed to, but just before the end, they bail out. They kill 50,000 Syrians, and then they can’t kill the king of the Syrians after he promises he’ll be good. And, boom, there they are, dead in the desert. They just can’t take they extra step. I don’t want to say this happens to me a lot, but it does happen. Occasionally. Like it does in the Bible. Occasionally. I mean, while it’s seldom that I’m asked to kill, I do find it hard to go for the jugular and finish things off. Particularly when it comes to saying no. The need to negotiate, the Spirit of Negotiation, so to speak, is so ingrained in my psyche that even when I say no,