To outsiders, the Bible seems like a book of NOs. We look at the story of Jonah and how his hubris (defiance) of saying no to God turned into the humility of accepting a no from God. When we pray, sometimes the answer is no, but we can rest assured that God generally says no to protect us (from ourselves) or because he has something better in mind that requires you to be exactly where you are in that moment. Therefore, the best road forward is one where we put aside our defiance and humbly submit to God.

Though we often try to ‘earn’ our salvation by our actions, God doesn’t really ‘need’ anything from us. Thus, our worth to God doesn’t not come from what we can do for him but rather from just being who we were created to be. He created us to be his partner not his slave and He sent Jesus to demonstrate how to bring God’s kingdom into the world and be the perfect partner for God.