The Answer is YES – The Gift of Saying YES in a NO World
It all started with a yummy cinnamon crunch bagel. Being my sweet wife’s birthday, and being the equally sweet husband I am :), beginning her special day with her favorite bagel, “Great Husband 101” no brainer!
Zipping over to my local bagel store, 10 minutes tops, and I’d be back home in all of my bagel glory! Maneuvering into the parking lot, and grrr! The drive through line was ten cars deep. No worries I thought. Plan B, the lobby looked invitingly slow. And yes, SCORE! Entering, it was only me and another guy, already sipping his coffee. Quick “in and out” — or so I thought!
Hello? Anyone here? No one at the counter, huh?. Somewhat patiently waiting, finally a sleepy eyed “bagel artist” surfaced from the kitchen. With a half-smile came a less than enthusiastic, “What can I get for you”?
Undeterred, I cheerfully placed my simple order. “Two of your famous cinnamon crunch bagels and cream cheese, please. Wifey’s birthday and I want to get it home as she wakes up!” 🙂
Then IT happened. “We’ll get to it in a few minutes, the drive through is backed up.” WHAT? Then almost instinctively came my less than grace filled reply, “BUT I am not at the drive through. Don’t you think you should wait on me, your ONLY customer in the lobby?” Then the response, “NO, that’s not how it works here!” ):
OK — I know I blew it. Patience is on my list of ongoing OPG’s (opportunities for personal growth). And thankfully I didn’t say more, just sat sulking waiting for the drive through line to be served.
My birthday enthusiasm was stunted. My customer service sensibilities bruised. My patronage of this particular bagel store placed on hold. My response, perhaps petty and overly sensitive, however probably not unusual in a customer service culture.
SO what if the answer would’ve been, YES? We’ll have your order right out. We’re glad you’re here. We love the cinnamon crunch bagel as well! YES, we are glad to serve you! I think my response would have been different. You would have had me at YES!
We humans are wired like that, right? YES tends to tap into a different psyche than NO. YES releases the inner-endorphins of openness and cooperation and all sorts of positive vibes and possibilities. NO on the other hand (and I am not naive enough to know that NO is not ever on the table) typically leads to just the opposite — lack of cooperation, lack of openness and lack of possibilities.
When you think of it, Jesus was a YES man (and in all the right connotations). Consider:
- God the Father asked him to be the “sent one” from heaven into this world. He said YES!
- He laid aside his divinity, to take on the form of humanity. He said YES!
- He modeled humility, acceptance and tolerance in a religiously intolerant society. He said YES!
- He was friends of the least, and lost, and lonely of society. He said YES!
- And ultimately, he laid down his life for his friends. He said YES!
Increasingly we live in an intolerant world — AND church. NO seems to be our default response. Daily I interact with lots of people who rightly or wrongly have formed the opinion that the church is a place of NO. NO you can’t do that. NO we don’t believe that. NO we don’t support that. NO we can’t help with that. And really, are we inadvertently saying — NO you’re not welcome here.
When we way YES, we give a gift to others. What if for today, we like Jesus, worked on our YES?
Jim
