The Sin of Constant Yeses
Church, would you describe your walk with the Lord as a restful faith?
In Isaiah 30:15, God spoke to a restless people. People that were anxious, proud, stubborn, overconfident, and tired of waiting on God. They were making plans, forming alliances, and building strategies for their future. In the sight of the Lord this was rebellion. God spoke to them through the prophet and said,
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength. But you were unwilling.”
That cuts deep.
It’s not that Israel didn’t believe in God; they just didn’t want to listen to Him. They wanted to move, to act, to flee to Egypt on swift horses, to do something. Sitting still felt like weakness. Waiting felt like a waste of time.
We know that feeling well. We fill our calendars, our inboxes, our weekends—sometimes even our ministry—with constant yeses. We tell ourselves it’s all for good reasons: opportunity, service, obedience, faithfulness, or our children’s desire to play competitive sports, and through all of this repetition, eventually we start to believe that everything depends on us.
So, we stay up late answering one more message. We say yes to one more event. We convince ourselves that slowing down would actually be irresponsible. But underneath all that moving, there is a wicked sin: pride. It’s a heart that says:
“If I stop, things will fall apart.”
“My job needs me to be available 24/7. That’s what makes me valuable.”
“My kids need me to sign them up for one more activity. That’s what good parents do.”
We say, “One day this will slow down, but right now in this season, God needs me to keep this running.”
We don’t word it that way, but functionally that’s how we operate.
It’s been said that a “yes” to one thing is a “no” to another. What a chilling thought that many of those no’s are to God Almighty.
No to dependence.
No to stillness.
No to trust.
The Lord doesn’t say, “In performance and productivity you shall be saved.” He says, “In return and rest.”
Charles Spurgeon wrote in his famous Lecture to My Students:
“Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength… it is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less”
Friends, this exhortation is not about clearing your schedule. It’s okay to live a full life. But what is the volume of that fullness? Are you allowing for intentional quiet resting in the Lord? Because when every margin of life is filled with distractions, we leave no room for delighting in the Lord like Psalm 1 says. Many times, conviction from the Spirit happens in stillness.
God’s voice is often clearest when the world is quietest.