Last weekend, I had a fabulous time speaking at the all-church retreat of First Presbyterian Church of Burlingame. I focused on Paul’s letter to the Philippians and the yeses we say to God—in faith, in friendship, in our work, and in daily life. Given my interest in the power of no, I touched on where and why we need to state nos to make these yeses mean something. But here I want to underscore—as I did last weekend—that in order to be touched by God, the final word is not a no. Our final word is a Yes to God’s Yes to us in Christ. As Paul writes in another of his letters: “For in [Christ] every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes’” (2 Corinthians 1:20). And that is good news indeed.
