There’s a story that a man was once asked by his neighbor to borrow his ax. The man responded that he couldn’t loan him the ax because he was about to have soup for supper. The stunned neighbor thought for a moment and asked what eating soup for supper could possibly have to do with borrowing his ax. The reply was, “When you don’t want to do something, one excuse is as good as another.” How true.
Most of us are quite skilled at coming up with excuses, I can’t count the times I’ve not started watching what I eat because I wanted a fresh start Monday morning. Any deviation in the weather can be an excuse to not exercise. We can come up with all sorts of excuses to not do things we know will draw us closer to God, the ordinary means of God’s grace: scripture reading, attending public worship, and prayer. In A Heart Like His, Mike and Amy Nappa give a list of excuses we use for not going to worship, but “church” was replaced with “ballgame”. For example:
- Whenever I go to a game, they ask for money.
- The other fans don’t care about me.
- The seats are too hard.
- The referee makes calls I don’t agree with.
- Some of the games go into overtime and make me late for dinner.
- The band plays songs I don’t know.
- I can be just as good a fan at the lake.
- I won’t take my kids to a game either. They must choose for themselves which teams to follow.
Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it? The truth is that if something is important enough to us we make time and we make an effort. If it isn’t we make excuses.