Episode 17: No excuses!

Are you tired of making excuses for everything that you did or didn’t do? How about hearing excuses from your kids when they didn’t follow through with their chores, or something you specifically told them to get done? In the beginning, it doesn’t seem so bad, but after a while, like anything else, excuses can get played out. Even with God.

Like the Israelites, we find ourselves in a vicious cycle. We end up begging God for mercy. saying that we’ll do better, and then going right back to continue the same sin over again. We end up cheapening grace until God steps in and causes a wake-up call! Listen to the podcast for this week to find out what happened to me when I ran out of excuses. Last week’s podcast episode can be found here.

No Excuses Podcast Outline

• Background on No Excuses
• Example of No Excuses in the bible
• My Chastisement
• Podcast Transcript

No Excuses Podcast scripture:

Jonah 3-4 King James Version (KJV)

3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

² Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

³ So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.

⁴ And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

⁵ So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

⁶ For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

⁷ And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

⁸ But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

⁹ Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

¹⁰ And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

Part Two

4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

² And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

³ Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

⁴ Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

⁵ So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

⁶ And the Lord God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

⁷ But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

⁸ And it came to pass, when the sun did arise, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

⁹ And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

¹⁰ Then said the Lord, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

¹¹ And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?King James Version (KJV)

Podcast Transcript

Welcome to the Valley of Grace Healing our Brokenness Podcast. And this morning, we are recording episode number 17 No Excuses.

We make excuses for everything.  We secretly wish that we could do things as well as other people.  For some of these things, we have the resources and materials to do them.  We won’t put them on our calendars.  And when we do, we keep putting them off until the next day.  I’ll get to it tomorrow.  I’ll get to it on the weekend.  The weekend turns into next week, then next month, then next year, and then 5 years later we are still wishing that we could’ve developed our skills in certain areas.  We trade our desires for time scrolling social media excessively or having Netflix or cable tv marathons. 

Here’s another one:  As soon as the kids are in kindergarten, I will practice better self-care.  Instead of doing this, we become even more worn down from playdate overload.  Then, once the kids get into middle school, I will get involved in small groups instead of isolating myself.  Instead of getting connected, we become even more isolated because we are running kids around 5 days a week for extracurricular activities.  A lot of times our excuses is that we are tired.  And a lot of times this is the truth.  However, we miraculously find a way to get everything else done.

Here’s another one:

As soon as football season is over, we’ll start eating together as a family, having family night, and the list goes on and on.  What happens is that the older our kids get, the more intentionality has to take place, but also, the harder it is to plan because of conflicting schedules, part-time jobs, girlfriends and boyfriends, and their desire to do more with their friends than with their parents.

Before you know it, we look up, and that time is gone.  Our children are young adults, and we are unable to get that time back.

Today, we are going to look at one individual who made excuses in the bible.  His name is Jonah.  He was told to go to Nineveh to warn the people of their sins and God’s judgment if they didn’t repent.  Instead of going, he headed to Tarshish and God had it where he was given a belly of the fish detour for disobeying his command.  Jonah felt justified in his disobedience?  Why?  His excuse was that he knew that God would forgive the people of Nineveh.  Let’s listen to the conversation that takes place between God and Jonah: 

Jonah 3:10-4:5

“And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

4 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

² And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

³ Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.

⁴ Then said the Lord, Doest thou well to be angry?

⁵ So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

We would rather make excuses for disobedience to God’s instructions when we have our own opinions of what God’s end decision will be.

When I was at my last residence, it got to the point that I knew that I wasn’t receiving the correct amount of child and maintenance support money.  I didn’t want the stress of going back to court.  I didn’t want the additional trauma either.  However, I struggled, playing the Robbing Peter to pay Paul game, trying to keep up with paying utilities and rent, and scrambling to buy food.  As circumstances would have it, (God) I got backed into a corner where I had to go to take him back to court as my kids and I were facing eviction.

The process lasted three painful years, and unfortunately, more lies than before erupted in regard to income.  Everything that he was doing was projected on to me.  Before leaving the courtroom, I almost ended up unfairly with a humongous amount of money to pay him.  The whole scene was one that was out of a crazy Lifetime movie, except it was my life. 

When I got home after court, the anger erupted, I said to myself, so basically three whole years for this end result?  Really!!!

However, the Holy Spirit had already spoken to me several months before the last court date and told me, “Even if you never see a penny of that money, it was never about the money to begin with.  It was about accountability and God wanting you to fight for what was rightfully yours.” 

God knew the only way that I would stand up for myself was to force me into a series of events that gave me no choice.

And so the question that I leave with you tonight as food for thought is this:  What excuse are you making that could be keeping you straddling the fence of disobedience to God?

Thank you for listening to Healing our Brokenness and have a wonderful rest of your night!

Call to Action

If you are ready to stop making excuses when it comes to living in survival mode, and dysfunctional patterns of behavior and coping mechanisms, check out my new online Teachable course. Remember: Healing, growth, and maturity is not a drive-thru service, it’s something that can take a lifetime. However, what are our choices: revolving door of stagnancy or thriving and freedom. YOU DECIDE! Click here for more information!