Welcome to Season 5 of the Excel Stillmore podcast. I'm still your host, Chris Emerson, and I'm here to encourage you in your walk with the Lord, and I'm glad you've joined.

The program continues to be sponsored by Cunningham Financial Group. John is a good friend, and he's helped me and my family in everything

from stock and mutual fund investing to annuities, life insurance, and retirement planning.

I certainly commend him to you if you have needs in any of those areas. You can reach him

at 205-326-7364. Thank you again for your ongoing encouragement and support. Let's get started.

Hey, welcome. I'm always glad that you're here. I sometimes start by saying that I'm excited about the topic today, which is generally true, and that's why I'm sharing it. But this time

around, I don't know that that's the right word. I would say more like enthralled with or

caught up in today's topic in a way that is a little bit scary, but yeah, in some ways also

exciting. As I'll explain today, what started for me with a conversation with a room full of

high school students a couple of weeks ago on moral issues and decision making has broadened out

to some deep and very interesting conversations with my wife on the decisions and priorities and

direction that we're taking in all sorts of areas. I will dig in on

all of that and explain to you why I've broken today's content into two episodes, but first,

let's cut straight to the chase. I have a question for you. What is your no line? How do you

decide when it's time to say no to something? Something for yourself, something for

your family. I mean, I trust that you know that we cannot say yes to everything. I will confess to you that I have

been caught up in that in years past, this idea that because I am a middle class American Christian that I pretty much get

to have almost everything. I get to say yes to Jesus and the church and eternal salvation.

Certainly there are some sinful things I have to say no to, but pretty much everything else

that the world gets to do and pour countless hours into for

their own personal joy I get to do also.

I've come to learn through personal experience and counseling with others that this is just

...