Ask Me Again, I'll Tell You the Same

We've heard coaches emphatically deny their interest in pursuing another job. They say they're happy where they are, that they're committed to their current players-only to be introduced days later at a press conference in a new city, wearing a new cap, announced as the new hire.

Maybe they really did say no the first time they were approached. Maybe it wasn't until the next offer, and the next, and the next-as the dollar signs went up and the package got sweeter-before they deemed it too good to pass up.

 

It's not that changing our mind is always wrong. Sometimes we make a mistake by stubbornly sticking to a decision rather than admitting we may not have made the best one at first. But don't you have greater respect for a man who can be asked the same question once, twice, three times, in fact-and even on the fourth time, his answer is no different?

The Bible character Nehemiah, while leading a controversial rebuilding project in old Jerusalem, was repeatedly approached by his political adversaries with an offer to come and talk things over. "Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer" (Nehemiah 6:4). There would be no diplomacy. He would not stop working. God had put him on this task, and nothing could turn him away from it.

Make up your mind to be that man. Keep being yourself, even when pressured to be someone else.