Excuses and rationales come in all flavors, colors and sporting a variety of monikers. You can find them everywhere, no need to look far and wide; you probably have a stockpile handy for unexpected issues that drop by. We all have them and have used them often. In large they are recyclable! We can use the same one over and over. It’s a sense of comfort to lean back on a familiar excuse. They do wear thin after a while, so we restate it thinking we are being, oh, so clever and creative. Sadly, the one we are fooling with our tired old worn out excuse is ourselves; everyone else knows our list of excuses as well as the menu at their favorite food joint.
There was a time in my Christian infancy when I blamed an entire denomination on the actions of two perverted men that had treated me badly. I refused to step foot in a church of that denomination because of my experiences. I wanted no part of a church that had people like that. I refused to take my young children to a church of that denomination as well. Thus, there was a time period I didn’t take them anywhere because their father insisted on that denomination and I refused based on my history viewed through my life tinted glasses. I felt justified, I had valid reasons…..I was wrong.
I was a flawed person using other flawed people as my excuse. Sounds rather like a clanging cymbal now but it rang strong in my rationale then. I cannot even take satisfaction in knowing that is one of the most common excuses when it comes to church going. Too many hypocrites – there’s always room for one more, people talk about other people, backstabbers – don’t listen, refuse to take part in such conversations, I only have the weekends to get everything done around the house – we need more attitudes of Mary and less of Martha. Laundry will always be around, I promise. The husband of a friend used to say he had church with God when he was in the woods hunting or on the boat fishing. His wife asked him who he gave his tithes and offerings to out there. I’m proud to say he now attends church with his wife. His decision!
I talked about going to church in the previous paragraphs but it certainly isn’t limited to that. The last time we painted our house, tired and exhausted, we decided we had done enough and would get to the touch-ups later. That was eight years ago…we’re still “trying to find the time” to touch-up. It’s time alright; time to paint the whole house again! Can you imagine the life one must lead to be so busy and productive that they are unable to find one afternoon in eight years to complete a necessary task!!? Yep…the old tired worn out excuse got very thin years ago; so much so, we don’t even bother making it anymore.
Then there is the honesty factor. When we throw out an excuse or rationale we often are sidestepping honesty all together. When “I don’t want to” is the honest answer and we send out “I just can’t because…” instead, we are not being completely honest. We are taking a slice of truth and stretching it to cover our real reason. In that stretching it can become distorted to the point of not even being recognizable. I once asked a Christian friend to help me with a portion of a ministry project I was doing. She had before and I just knew I could count on her help again. So I asked, describing the task with which I needed help. Without blinking an eye she answered, “No, I don’t think I’m interested in doing that.” At first I was taken aback by the unexpected reply, then amused and after a little contemplation I felt admiration for her total upfront honesty. It was a breath of fresh air in the stagnant world of excuses. I had to admire that. I’m pretty much a ‘bottom line kind of girl’ and still I have trouble being as straight forward as my friend when asked to do things I do not want to do. I find I fall back on making excuses. I have come to the conclusion that we need to stop making excuses about making excuses. That would make them excuses to the second power!
We need to clean out our stash of excuses and rationales like we would a junky closet. This, of course, requires complete honesty with ourselves and we all know how painful that can be. Take the band-aide approach with each excuse as you come to it and just rip it out of your vocabulary and mentality. Ask Jesus to help you, Lord knows we all need His help in every step of the process…being honest with ourselves, facing our ugly habits and ways, staying faithful to the process, etc. He knows how hard this is for us and we can do all things through His strength. We just have to first make the decision to do so.
P.S. All the Martha’s out there be you male or female need to take off the proverbial apron and spend more time with Jesus. There is nothing in or around our homes that won’t wait a couple of hours on Sundays.
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