Leadership Thought for People Who Find It Easy to Make Excuses.

Dear Friends,

An inmate at Butte County Jail in California explained his absence from jail to a sheriff’s deputies in this way: “I was playing pole vault and got too close to the wall and I fell over the wall.  When I regained my senses, I ran around and tried to find a way back in, but being unfamiliar with the area, I got lost”. Next thing I knew I was in Ohio.”

Wow, that is a giant size excuse. I know another man who made some excuses, although not quite as big as the one I just described.

In the 4^th chapter of Exodus, Moses said to the Lord, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Again, the Lord speaks to Moses and tells him to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go, and once again we see him offering up his excuse. Moses says to the Lord, “If the Israelites will not listen to me why would Pharaoh listen to me since I speak with faltering lips?” (Exodus 6:12)

Ever make and excuse? I know I have, and there have been too many over the years, and often those excuses have belied my lack of trust in God. When we are asked to do something that we think is beyond our ability, do we like Moses offer up some form of excuse? And is that excuse more a sign of our lack of our faith than a lack of our own ability?

 Be careful when you make an excuse. Before you say no to something you are asked to do, take the time to ponder the request. Be sure to pray over it,  asking God to show you if this is something He is calling you do to do. And  if it is, then step out in faith and trust in His strength to help you accomplish the challenge.

It is one thing to quote Philippians 4:13 (“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”), but it is another thing to apply it personally to our own lives.

Moses didn’t think he could speak, but we know that in time he developed his speaking ability, and he did so in a big way.

I love how the evangelist Billy Sunday once described an excuse. He said, “an excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with as lie.” We all need to think about that the next time we are tempted to say no to something that we know in our heart God wants  us to do.

Have a great weekend.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom