Steadfast Decisiveness
“Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’
Anything more is from the Evil One.”Matthew 5:37
One of the biggest weaknesses that I struggle with is indecisiveness. I can recall as a young child, maybe more so a teenager, I would spend hours in the book store going back and forth as to which book I wanted to buy. After a couple of hours, I would end up leaving the store emptyhanded. Does this resonate with you? I admire those people who are able to go into the store, go to the section where the book is at, retrieve from the shelf, and then proceed to the checkout line. Over the years I have practiced that and have successfully executed the first three steps, but right after getting the book I have planned to, my eye catches something else and I begin to explore. An hour or two later, I might end up purchasing the book I had intended to get, the other one that caught my eye, or both. Being decisive, I think, really is a virtue, especially in our spiritual lives.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus implore His disciples to let their “yes mean yes” and their “no mean no.” To follow Christ and to pursue a life of holiness requires a steadfast decisiveness. Any lukewarmness will cause us to stumble. In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola gives the scenario of standing either under the banner of God or the banner of the enemy. There can be no grey area in where we stand. We are either on God’s side or the enemy’s. Of course any person in their right mind will say they are on God’s side. But when storms rise and hardships come, how will we be? As human beings, it is natural that we will sin and stumble, but that doesn’t mean that we waver on our original “yes.” What it does mean is that when those times of trial come, we must remember our original “yes” to God and mean it, allowing all that we do flow from that steadfast decision.
Brothers and sisters, may we renew our “yes” to God today, and invite Him into our hearts so that all that we think, say, and do reflects such steadfastness so that when storms and trials come, we will not waver because we know that God is stronger than those storms and trials, for He is the One who called order out of chaos, calming the storm and arranging the stars. The One who led the Israelites through the Red Sea dry shod will lead us through the storms of our lives and bring us to shore.
