Your Sacred Non-Negotiables | The Essential Grace Series, Pt. 2

What if saying “yes” to everything is actually costing you what matters most? In today’s episode, we’re talking about sacred non-negotiables — those holy, grounding rhythms that anchor your soul when life tries to uproot you. From morning silence to family dinners, these aren’t just fun ideas. They are prophetic boundaries protecting the life you were made for. 

With Matthew 6:33 as our compass (“Seek first the kingdom…”), we’ll dismantle the belief that we can have competing priorities and reclaim the wisdom of guarding your heart like the life-giving well it’s meant to be. This isn’t about building walls — it’s about saying “yes” time and time again to what restores you and points you in the right direction. 

Ready to name what’s non-negotiable in your life? Let’s dive in! 

Today’s Reflection Questions: 

Think back to a time when life felt really grounded, spacious, Spirit-led. 

• What was present in that season? 
• Were there rhythms in your life that restored you? 
• Were there boundaries in place that helped you? 
• Was there an absence of distractions in that season? 

Here’s a link to Greg McKeown’s bestselling book, Essentialism.

Chapters

• 0:00 Happy Wednesday!
• 7:15 Priority vs. Priorities
• 9:28 Examples of Personal Non-Negotiables
• 11:13 Guard Your Heart
• 14:05 Closing Meditation & Prayer

Transcript

Michele: 0:00

It's Wednesday, May 14th, and this is Today's Kus Word. Welcome to Today's Kus Word where this week we are launching into a fresh new series called Essential Grace. I'm going to be exploring some big life coaching topics this week, like uncovering your values, clarifying your purpose, designing an intentional life, juicy stuff like that. I'm Michele Kus, your spiritual growth coach. Let's get into it. Happy Wednesday.

Michele: 0:29

Hey, I want to give a shout out to LulaBanana12. I have no idea who you are, but you left me an amazing review on Apple Podcasts. It says Michele's teachings are a lot like my favorite Uncle Matt's orange juice. Low key shout out to Uncle Matt. They're biblical, they're humorous without being cutesy clever, and they work. Michele does a lot of research, it's true, I do. It's a sickness. I like how she gets things into chunk size bites. I think on one episode we called those micro nuggets, right? I have been very much challenged by her concepts.

Michele: 1:05

Taking a morning moment to glean things on this podcast is very fruitful, very filling. At times it's revolutionary, but it's never boring. Hey, thanks, LulaBanana12. We always try to keep it fresh squeezed and fresh and packed with vitamins here on Today's Kus Word. So thanks for that awesome review! And if you want to leave a rating or a review for the show, it actually really helps the podcast algorithm. It pushes the show out to more people so more people can find the show. So you can go into Apple Podcasts, you can leave a rating and or a review, or you can go into Spotify and leave a rating. Either way or both, it always helps the show. So thank you so much for that, and let's dive into today's episode, which I am calling your Sacred Non-Negotiables.

Michele: 2:01

So let's be honest. Life is loud. There's so many people, projects, problems vying for your attention, right? And it's easy to say yes to a million things and suddenly your calendar is packed out and you are stressed out. So part of spiritual growth and spiritual maturity is not just saying yes to all of the things, but it's actually thinking about what you refuse to give up. So here's Today's Kus Word: I have permission to protect what matters most. One more time: I have permission to protect what matters most.

Michele: 2:47

So on Monday we kicked off our Essential Grace series talking about what makes you come alive, and I hope you loved that episode. It was really fun to make it and I hope you had some time to reflect on that super important question and think about some of the things that make you come alive, whether it's something you're doing or a place that you are like in nature, or maybe certain people that you're with. It could be wide open. So today we're continuing in our series talking about your sacred non-negotiables. These are your holy anchors in your life that are not up for debate. These are your values, your relationships, your rhythms, all of the things that your soul says yes to over and over again. Your sacred non-negotiables are not just preferences. They're actually kind of prophetic in your life because they point you to the kind of life that you were created for and designed for. So you can think of them almost like these holy tent pegs that keep you firmly grounded when the whirlwind of the world tries to uproot you and toss you around in a million directions.

Michele: 4:10

So in Matthew 6, verse 33, Jesus says this: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all of these things will be added to you. And I know a lot of you love that verse. Maybe it's even your life verse and this actually could be the most countercultural verse in the entire Bible. I don't know, at least countercultural in terms of the United States culture, where I am. We have a culture that celebrates busyness and productivity, that is filled with burnout and busyness. So this Matthew 6.33 is not just a cool memory verse. It's actually kind of a holy rebellion and an epic strategy for your freedom. Because seeking first means you are not seeking everything, right? It means you are deciding. You are intentionally, spiritually, unapologetically deciding what actually matters to you.

Michele: 5:23

And a quick sidebar here, quick English lesson. The word decide comes from the Latin word, which literally means to cut off. So at its core, to decide means to cut off all the other options and to make a clear, committed choice that eliminates the rest. So if you have trouble deciding on something, it's because you know deep down in your gut maybe you don't want to cut off all the other options that are potentially available to you. So when you decide your sacred non-negotiables, you're not just making a list, you're actually cutting away all of the noise, the excess fluff and stuff that I mentioned on Monday that might be distracting you from what you're here on the earth to do. You're saying, hey, this is the way and that is not. It is like a sacred act of pruning in your life and Jesus actually talks about this idea of pruning in John 15, where the Father prunes or cuts away branches that don't bear any fruit, and it's so we can grow more freely and produce more fruit. So, deciding what matters most to you is that kind of spiritual pruning. You are cooperating with the Holy Spirit in your life and saying, hey, let's prune some of this stuff out that isn't bearing any fruit. So here's the deal: Not everything can be a priority, right?

Michele: 7:16

Here is a fascinating little detail and another sidebar English lesson for you, especially as we get into talking about clarity and alignment. So originally that word priority when it entered the English language in the 1400s, it was a strictly singular word. Priority. It meant the very first thing, the item that came before all others in importance, right? And we know this. We know that's what priority means. So for hundreds of years no one used the word priorities in the plural because logically you couldn't have more than one first, right? It wasn't until very recently in the 20th century, and kind of with the rise of industrialism and this hustle culture that we're all kind of steeped in now, at least here in the West, it wasn't until just recently we started bending that word to our will, talking about priorities and trying to treat them all as if they were all urgent or all of equal importance. Okay, Michele, that's a really interesting English lesson. What's your point? Well, when everything is a priority and you say I have these priorities, if everything's a priority, nothing really is a priority, right? If you can't name what matters most to you, the world will gladly do that for you. So Greg McKeown wrote a book called Essentialism, which I highly recommend, and I will put a link to that book in the show notes if you want to grab it. He says this: If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.

Michele: 9:28

So let's pause for a second. Let's get clear. What are your non-negotiables? What practices, what spaces, what rhythms, what people, what are the things that ground you in God's presence and bring you closer to your unique purpose? Let me give you a few examples. Maybe for you it's having morning silence. Maybe it's having morning coffee. That could be one of your non-negotiables and it's perfectly valid. Maybe it's daily moving your body in a way that feels good for you, like taking a walk in nature or taking a workout class, or my friend Katie, who loves to go to Spenga, which is just an incredibly fun word to say. Maybe it's having creative space or margin, or just being around people who see and know and love the real you. Maybe it's not allowing distractions or notifications at certain times during your workday. Maybe it's having dinner together as a family a certain number of nights a week, or maybe it's always being ready for bed by 9pm.

Michele: 10:54

This is wide open. It's not just about your spiritual life or when you're going to read the Bible or pray. This has to do with your rhythms when you're getting up, when you're sleeping, when you're eating, when you're interacting with your family, your friends. All of those things affect your life.

Michele: 11:12

So in Proverbs 4, verse 23, we read this: Above all else guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. So this is a great divine strategy. It tells us that your heart is much more than just your emotions or, like the seat of your feelings. Your heart is the source. It's the spring where all of your words, your decisions, your energy, your creativity, your relationships all flow from this sacred source called your heart.

Michele: 11:56

So what is guarding your heart? Well, it's not about building walls, right? It's about having healthy boundaries and having sacred non-negotiables. It's about discerning what's allowed to shape you and fill you and influence you. And I'll tell you, in my own life, there are certain things and people who are allowed to shape me and influence me and certain things and people who aren't. And that's where boundaries come in. These aren't walls to keep people out. We still love people, right? So they're not walls, but they.

Michele: 12:39

You can think of them like wells to keep your own heart and soul hydrated. This isn't rejection, it's just protection, right? It's protection of your peace, protection of your heart. If you think of your heart like a garden, it needs tending, like the soil needs tending, the roots need watering and protection, and weeds can come in, right? Feelings of obligation, feelings of people pleasing, overloading your calendar, comparing yourself to other people. These are weeds that we just need to go in, recognize them and then pull them out, without judging ourselves, right? Because we all do these things. So just pull out the weeds.

Michele: 13:28

And your boundaries are how you guard your heart, or your flow. It's how you protect the conditions so that grace and life and energy can grow. You're creating this beautiful environment where you can flourish, because everything you do, every word you speak, every yes you give, all of those things flow from the state of your heart. So we want to make sure that your heart is in a good place, right? So we guard it. It's a holy act.

Michele: 14:05

So, to finish up, just take a deep breath and breathe in grace and breathe out clutter. Take another deep breath and breathe in clarity and breathe out confusion and overwhelm. And I believe that deep down, you already know what matters most to you. So let's just return to it. Let's design a life where your values get VIP access. Your sacred non-negotiables deserve sacred space in your life. So think back to a time in your life when you felt really grounded, when your life felt really spacious and Spirit-led, and ask yourself: What was present in that season? Were there rhythms in your life that restored you? Were there boundaries in place that helped you? Was there an absence of distractions in that season? Write down a few things that pop to mind and name them, because once you name them, you can start actively protecting those non-negotiables in your life. And I'll put these reflection questions down in the show notes as well, if you would like to refer back to them later or if you just want to see them written out.

Michele: 16:07

Let me pray for us. God of clarity and kindness, thank you for whispering truth into our chaos. Thank you for the grace to name what matters and the courage to release what doesn't. Help us to guard our hearts with wisdom and to walk in rhythms that restore our souls. Teach us to honor the sacred in our days and teach us to seek first your kingdom and to trust that all else will fall into place. Help us to say no to lesser things so that we can give our best yes to what really matters. In the beautiful name of Jesus. Amen. And that, my friend, is what I've got for you today. I hope you loved this second episode in our Essential Grace teaching series and, if you did, make sure you share it with a friend. Don't keep all of this ooey gooey goodness to yourself. Share the love! In the next episode of this teaching series, I'm going to unpack how to recognize your true self and what it means to live fully you. You don't want to miss it! Until then, have an awesome day.