Excuses

You ever have those random conversations with God where He points out something He doesn’t like that’s a part of your life. I had one of those last night while driving home. For some reason God had me thinking about excuses.

Excuses we give Him so we won’t have to do what He says.

“Look God, I know how You want me to live. I know what You think is best .But here’s what I’m going to do.”

“Look at this person over there. They are in worse shape than me.”

“But God, those things You said back in the olden days really can’t apply in our modern society.”

“But God, look at me. I’m in no shape to be a leader.”

“I’d like to give my whole life to You, but I think I’ll just hold on to this little thing.”

“But God my girlfriend and I are married in our hearts.”

“But God it’s not like I’m a murderer or anything serious like that.”

But, but, but…

I know God gets tired of listening to my excuses and honestly I have been tired of giving them for quite some time. I can give out many stories in the Bible about guys making excuses to God. First we have Adam: Hey yeah I ate the fruit God, but it’s the woman’s fault. She gave me the fruit. There’s Moses: “But I’m not good with words. Why do I have to go lead my people out of Egypt?” Then, we have Jonah: it doesn’t record Jonah’s excuse but we know He had one. Anytime you run from God, you have all kinds of excuses. I bet he was scared of the Ninevites.

And of course we know that life would have been much better for the people if they had just obeyed God from the beginning. No wasting time. No debating. Just followed through on their path.

While I was thinking about this I was immediately taken to the story of Jesus’ death. He didn’t give God any excuses. He didn’t whine that the dying for the sin of the world was too much. “Listen God, Good Friday is just not a good day for me, how about next week?” (I don’t think it was called Good Friday back then though.) He knew what He had to do and He followed through. Even though He hadn’t done anything wrong, He took all of our wrongdoings and suffered the punishment for them…all without any excuses. No buts. No running away. No passing the blame.

If He has done that for me, why am, I still making excuses for not living my whole life for Him? Yeah, it’s great to claim to follow Jesus, but to actually follow through with what you say you believe is a different story. To lay your excuses aside and give it all to Him is the only actual way to follow Him. Sure we’ll make some mistakes along the way. Thankfully He has grace. And it’s more than enough. So for me it’s time to start laying my excuses aside and picking up my cross. And I pray the same for you.