The power of your yes and no

An excerpt from “Overbooked and Overwhelmed” 

Do you struggle with FOMO, the fear of missing out? We trivialize it and make jokes about it with its cutesy acronym, but let’s just call it what it is: It’s fear. It’s our fear of what we may not get to experience, who we may disappoint, or what we won’t achieve if we say no to opportunities that pop up. FOMO is a distraction in and of itself. It takes our eyes off of living fully awake to life with Jesus, because we are afraid of what might happen if we miss what’s going on around us. So we overbook and overcommit. We say yes to more than we should.

After physically and spiritually burning myself out, there was one life practice in particular that I knew God was calling me to do: start saying no. But that tiny, two-letter word felt anything but tiny. “No” felt like a cuss word. “Yes” felt like the right word, the God word, the loving word, the only word. So I refused the Spirit’s call for a while, ignoring that gnawing feeling inside, and continued to say yes to just about everything and everyone.

Sadly, my obsession with saying yes did not come from a desire to honor God or put him first. I overbooked, overcommitted and overused the word “yes” because I was afraid of letting people down. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my overuse of “yes” was my way of pleasing people and pleasing myself. I didn’t want to miss out on any experience that came my way for fear of how I would be perceived or what I would not gain.

My guess is that you’re no stranger to FOMO either—whether it’s the fear of missing out on a party or a trip or even on a dream. Perhaps you have believed or are currently believing that saying yes all the time is just what you need to do. After all, your motivations are pure. You don’t want to say no, because you love people, you want to serve, you want to be in community or you want to be where the joy and excitement are. But your good intentions may just be wringing yourself out. Sooner or later, the effects of an unhealthy relationship with the words “yes” and “no” will catch up to you.

Our perception of the word “yes” may just be skewed. God does not ask us to wring ourselves out like a washcloth for His name. Rather, He discourages it. He reminds us that it’s only through His grace that His power is made perfect in our weakness—in our noes, our inabilities and our lack. The life we long for is found in spending our energy on the assignments, callings and situations that are worth it. The life we long for is found in putting our focus on the God things.

What if instead we started having FOMO for the things of God—a desire to not miss out on what God has for us? What if we started allowing truth to dictate our actions from a place of Him being first in our lives? The good news is that in Christ, we don’t have to fear missing out. In him, we have the fulfillment of everything we long for. Jesus is here, he’s alive in us, and he’s not going anywhere. Yes, you and I will miss out on some things from an earthly perspective when Jesus is first in our lives. You can bet that Jesus will call you to say no to situations, pleasures, and more in order to be fully awake to what really matters—the eternal things. But if we choose to say no to lesser things in order to keep up with him, there will be less room for us to miss our purpose. And maybe that’s the kind of FOMO worth having, the kind that compels us to be so in sync with Jesus that we don’t miss the abundant life he has for us, the abundant life that overwhelm wants to steal from us.

We want a life that is intentional, in the big and the small. We want a life that is less overwhelming and simpler. To get there, to choose the better portion, we have to make a choice. We can’t let the fear of missing out distract us, fixating on the what-ifs, when the Word of Life himself is sitting in our living room waiting for us to slow down. The enemy of our souls wants to distract us with the desire to go all out—saying yes to the world and everything it has to offer—but what happens in the end? We become distracted from our purpose and from the One who gave that purpose to us. We grow so busy with our commitments, or overcommitments, that there’s little margin left for our Savior and what he’s called us to.

Learning the way of intentional yeses and noes won’t just help you in your day-to-day life. It will also help you keep God first as you stop giving in to the pressure to overbook, overwhelm, or overcommit but, instead, intentionally choose what will draw you closer to God. Learning this way of life not only gives you peace from the overwhelm of your demanding schedule; it will also give you a surpassing peace in your home, body and relationship with God.

Adapted from “Overbooked and Overwhelmed” by Tara Sun. Copyright © 2025 by Tara Sun. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. HarperCollinsChristian.com

Do Good:

• Read “Overbooked and Overwhelmed: How to Keep Up with God When You’re Just Trying to Keep Up with Life” (Thomas Nelson, 2025) by Tara Sun. 
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