Blessed2Bless by Steve Klusmeyer
The Answer Is No
by Steve Klusmeyer - 10/21/2003
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Just Say No!
A huge Oriental gong hung just inside the door of the second-hand shop. It measured four feet in diameter and a two-foot-long mallet with the top the size of a softball hung on a rope next to it to complete the set. A piece of notebook paper bearing one word in large letters had been taped to the center of the gong. The word was "NO!"No - only two letters, but it may be the most used word and, at the same time, the most ignored. It is one of the first words learned in life and is a favorite of toddlers. Thirteen-olds think it is the only word their parents know. It inspires adages like, "Just say NO!" "No Fear!" "No Way!" and "What part of NO don't you understand?" There is even a web site that translates no into more than 520 languages.
The Answer is Still No
I read somewhere that by the time we are five-years-old we hear the word no 40,000 times. Whether it is a display of the stubborn, negative streak of a two-year old or the umpteenth time you have told your teenager, "No you cannot (fill in the appropriate item)." the word no just seems to generate negative feelings (no pun intended).But, as we have all said or have all been told, "It's for your own good." Jesus once used the word no in this positive form when he spoke to a woman who had been brought to him, "Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." Other Biblical authors wrote, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." and "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Learn more.