Trust my grandma to come up with a clever spin on a common phrase. (She is the same grandma who has invented words like encosegrator, grusel, and snitherwoo, and she has developed complete definitions to their various forms of speech.)

Anyway, one of my grandma’s family-famous lines is, “Where there’s a will, there’s a won’t.”

She uses it to express a humorous mode of stubbornness, changing a classic on perseverance and ingenuity to the all-too-common reality of obstinacy.

In truth, though, my grandma is right—and twisting her twist, her statement does apply to making a way. Where there is a will to do something, there must also be a won’t to do any competing thing.

In other (and better) words, sometimes we have to say “no” in order to say “yes.”

Reaching a goal has always required discipline, focus, and perseverance. And for me, a self-acclaimed sufferer of attention deficit disorder, these have never been easy. I want to say “yes” to everything—every opportunity, every idea, every worthwhile time investment or activity.

But I’m learning that saying “yes” to everything is really a delayed form of saying “no” to the truly important things.

And, especially, I’m learning that where there is a will to accomplish what God has for my life today, there is a won’t to involve myself in any competing distraction.

Accomplishment and stubbornness go together. Focus and progress are friends.

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.—Philippians 3:14