Excuse my Excuses

Excuse My Excuses

"The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other person finds an excuse." -author unknown

We all can be guilty of making excuses, but a couple areas where we make excuses sometimes that are unhealthy is with our behavior and habits. We excuse our poor behavior and continue it without making any attempts to improve it. We also can be guilty of making excuses for others like family, friends, co-workers behavior and habits and the result of that is us enabling or allowing their continued bad habits/behavior. 

What I'm talking about is this, look at these examples:  "Oh that's just Mary she's always late, we're use to it", or "that's just how Jim is He's always moody", or "oh there goes Sally again she's always losing her temper and going off on people", or "that's Rick he's  always undependable and not doing what he said he would do", you see how we make excuses for peoples poor behavior/habits/attitudes and we allow them to continue or better yet, what about when we do it ourselves "I'm just having a bad day", "I didn't have enough coffee", "didn't get enough sleep", "you make me lose my temper", "you're the reason I'm always late".

Excuses. We have them. We make them. We offer them.  We use excuses to excuse our behavior and the behavior of others and the end result is nothing changes and some continue to get worse or out of control.  If you're a Christ follower, then there are no excuses for sinful or bad behavior, bad habits, poor character traits, or not accepting responsibility for our actions/attitudes.  I also think based on my study of scripture that God doesn't want us to enable, condone, or allow others to act this way or defend them, but instead correct them, rebuke them, hold them accountable, and expect the same in return.

There is an infinite amount of excuses we can make for why we are lazy,  bossy, always late,  grouchy, mean, undependable, sin, and why we do or say anything under the sun.  But, how are you honoring God, your relationships, your integrity or character, your employer, your church, your friends, or your own self respect by making excuses for your mistakes, poor decisions, bad judgments, bad habits, lack of discipline, poor choices, etc...? You're not.  God is honored when we are honest, sincere, make an effort, accept responsibility, do our best, are willing and able, and work to be the best person we can be for His glory.

I got a list a mile long of my bad habits, bad attitudes, and character flaws and quirks, I imagine we all do, but please don't make excuses for me or allow me to make excuses for myself. I also will not allow you or others to make excuses for yourself and I will strive to not excuse others actions/attitudes.  God designed Christians(the church body) to support each other, encourage one another, lift each other up, hold one another accountable, and  work together.  We can't do that if we are not giving God or others our best.

We need to be self-aware and have self-respect and respect for others. We should all  work at having respect for others time, feelings, personal space, property, our relationship, boundaries, or whatever we lacking.  We need to stop making excuses for ourselves and be the best that God created us to be. We also need to stop making excuses for others and allowing them to continue hurting themselves or others or continue with bad behavior, habits, or qualities that may be effective us or others.

Stop being late, stop taking our your anger on other people, stop being bossy, stop being unreliable, stop taking shortcuts, stop being a jerk, stop waiting til the last minute, or stop whatever it is you are doing that is a bad habit, bad attitude, or bad behavior and stop making excuses and start making a plan to overcome bad with good.  Stop making excuses for yourself and others. Join me at working on no more excuses for myself or others and lets make the world a better place  by being more like Christ.

Romans 1:20(niv)
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.