Excuses One of my least favorite phrases that my Dad said frequently to me as a kid was, “I don’t want to hear your excuses”. Oh, how I hated that sentence. It made me feel that I wasn’t valued and that he didn’t care about me. Never mind the fact that it usually came after my Dad had discovered that I hadn’t done something that I was suppose to, or that I did something I wasn’t suppose to do. It didn’t matter; I still hated that sentence when I was young. Looking back now I realize how right he was and how I was wrong. All my Dad wanted me to do was to obey him, and when I didn’t he certainly wasn’t interested in my excuses, it didn’t change the fact that I had still disobeyed him. In fact, it made it worse because it showed him that I didn’t feel that I was wrong, that I didn’t feel that I had disobeyed him. All he wanted was my obedience and not only could I not obey but I sinned even more by trying to justify my disobedience. Now that I am so much older and wiser (ha ha), I find myself in the same place as my Dad did when I was a child. People’s excuses for not doing things quite frankly disgust me. My excuses for things disgust me, and yet I still make them. While some excuses are quite valid many are not. Yes, things happen, more important things come up. I understand this. More recently I’ve found that when I disobey or let someone down, it is goes a lot better for me if I just admit I’m wrong rather than making excuses. The lecture that usually follows is not as long if you just admit you are wrong and say you will do whatever it is you didn’t do, or that you won’t do something you weren’t suppose to do, again. It is a very hard thing to do and I admit I have not yet mastered it. Saying your sorry and meaning it also goes a long way. Asking God to give you with genuine repentance even when you still feel rebellious is an excellent thing to do. Outward submission is not submission if the inside isn’t right, too. Back to excuses. I say I can’t love that person, can’t care about her or treat her with the respect she deserves. I can love a million other people, people that are in the juvenile home, people that are homeless, people with strange clothes, or odd colored hair, people that smell like body odor, people that don’t respect me, people that treat me wrong, that take advantage of me. I can love all those people, that many other people have trouble loving. I can love them, but I can’t love that one person that annoys me. I can’t love this person because I don’t want to. I am so wrong, God calls me to love as he has loved therefore any excuse I can come up with is not valid. People say they can’t help it, something happened in their past that makes them the way they are. Afraid. Unwilling to step out and take a chance. Not willing to trust God with the results. Not only does this belittle the power of God but it also keeps us from truly seeing how awesome he is and leaves us in bondage. I can’t change because of my past. God isn’t powerful enough over come my past. It is so sad. We let Satan use things in our past to keep them from experiencing all the wonderful things God has for us, and all the things he wants to use us for. A week or so ago I had the opportunity to hear a missionary friend of mine speak. He said, “If God wakes you in the middle of the night and you feel called to pray for someone and you do not, God will wake up someone else to pray for them. But you will be held accountable for your actions.” This made me think. If God calls me to do something and I don’t do it, I will be held accountable for it and I really doubt I’ll be making excuses then, and if even I was God would say “I don’t want to hear your excuse.” If God calls us to start a project, take a job, give food to a homeless person, step outside our comfort zone, or give up an area of our lives that we have been holding back, and be don’t because we don’t know how long we’ll be around to work on the project or if we will ever finish it. Or don’t know how long will be in that job, or we might actually have to talk to a homeless person and people will think we are crazy, or we might have to change something that will upset our perfectly structured, controlled lives. Or even worse we might not be able to by that new outfit or it would put our bank account down to a balance that makes us uncomfortable we are making excuses. We are disobeying. God says he doesn’t want to hear our excuses. All he wants from us is our obedience. He wants us to step out in faith and trust him with the results so that his true power and glory can be shown, so that our weakness can be made perfect in his strength. Anytime we willing disobey we are mocking God, we making him to be less than what he really is. We are being rebellious children that deserve nothing less than a good spanking. The question is: Am I willing to stop making excuses??? Am I willing to give up the things that are holding me back and live a life in full abandonment to God??? Am I willing to admit I am wrong and just obey him??? | 
