Excuses as Tools

I catagorize excuses into 2 distinct camps. First of all there are those excuses people use that are no more than tools to keep them from facing the spiritual truth about themselves and God. The second catagory are those excuses that are steeped in emotional hurt. In this blog I will deal with the first of these two catagories; the type of excuses that are tools to protect us from a reality we don't want to face. The second type of excuse, I will write about in my next blog.

For some reason many of us grow up making excuses that keep us away from getting too close to God. Something deep inside knows that God wants something from us that we do not want to give. It is also possible that we feel that God wants more from us than we are able to give. Whatever it is, it unsettles us to the point that we build excuses and explanations for why we either give enough to God already or don't need to give anything more to Him at all.

Our excuses can be somewhat based in reality. In other words there is enough reality in our excuses for us to hold on to them. However, ir we look carefully at most of our excuses, they are not as solid as we believe. Take this excuse for example: "Christians are hypocrites." There is a lot of truth to this statement - there are many hypocrites in churches... but not all Christians are hypocrites. In fact, there are many Christians who are very genuine.

The excuse that Christians are hypocrites can also betray some unrealistic expectations we have for Christianity such as Christians should be flawless. Unfortuneatly, the reality is this: We are all flawed, even Christians.

Most of the excuses we use are not as solid as we think, in fact, the reason we have excuses is simply to keep us from giving any more to God than we already do.

On the flip side, some of us don't need negative excuses because we have already told ourselves that we have done all that's necessary to keep God happy. For example, many of us think that believing in God is all that's needed... If we believe there is a God, then all is well. Or we may believe that if we do enough nice things to others God will certainly take note and all will be well.

This is a list of just some of the excuses that are very commonly used:

1. Focus on Others
a. Christians are hypocrites.
b. Abusing pastors and prists in the news.
c. The church just wants money.
2. Focus on Self
a. I don't have time for church or God.
b. Someday I will, but not now.
d. I'm a nice person and that's all that God wants.
3. Focus on God
a. God is mean and vengeful.
b. I believe there is a God and that's all I need.
4. Focus on the Bible
a. The Bible is a fairy tale full of lies.
b. There are contradictions in the Bible.
c. People wrote the Bible.
5. Focus on the World
a. If God is so loving then why is there suffering in the world?

I don't have the time or energy to deal with each one of these one by one. Besides the real issue is not the commonly used excuse but the real issue is why the excuse is used.

Before I became a Christian I held on to many of these excuses, but a day came when they just didn't matter any more; I wanted God so much that my excuses faded away and I didn't care about all my reasons and excuses I held on to for so long.

Today is the day to let go of your excuses. Its time to face spiritual reality. You need God and something in you is drawing you to Him. That is more important than all the excuses you can build together.