Or No Excuse for Excuses
What excuse will I give God when I could have been better trained for the ministry He has called me to and I did not seize the opportunity and other people did not meet the Lord or grow because of it?
What exactly is an excuse?
In a court of law, “an excuse is a defense in which a defendant argues that he or she was not liable for his or her actions at the time a law was broken and thus he or she should not be held liable for a crime.” I think an excuse is a reason we give when something happens that does not go our way. It is the why we do something when we get caught. It is our reason for not doing something we know we should do.
The Bible is full of people making excuses and making excuses is as old as human beings. Look at Genesis 3 where Adam makes an excuse for eating the forbidden fruit or Exodus 32 when Aaron gives excuses to his brother Moses for building the golden calf. In Luke 14, the master of the house prepares for a big banquet, lets the people far and wide know the day is coming so they can attend. The expectation would be that those invited would drop what they are doing and come. Everyone knew the
banquet was being prepared and they were supposed to have cleared their schedules. But when the banquet date came all who were invited gave excuses. You see, God wants us to make Him a priority.
Sometimes, as Awana missionaries, we feel like we have prepared the “banquet” for regional training, events and Awana Ministry Conference and all we hear is excuses.
Here are some of them:
- I already know everything about Children’s Ministry or Awana.
- I have been in children’s ministry for many years.
- I know the basics of how to work with children so that is all that is needed.
- Our church has something else scheduled that day.
- It is too far to travel.
- It costs too much.
- Children’s Ministries is mostly babysitting.
- Saturday is my family time.
- It’s not interesting to me. I have more important things to do.
I have no idea what your excuse is. We all give God excuses why we can’t serve. I want to encourage you this day to get rid of your excuses and commit yourself to being faithful to God in this Awana year and that starts with training. God wants to have a relationship with us and He wants that relationship to be the most important. Thanks for putting Him first place as you serve this year!