Mistakes, part 7

7. God will turn your excuses into nothing.

God knows us well. He knows we don’t always ignore His calling through deliberate disobedience. He knows it could be fear, desire, sins we can’t forgive ourselves for, or any number of excuses that keep us from following Him to where He leads. He gets it, but that doesn’t make it okay.

The most obvious and best example for this is Moses (Jonah also works, but I talked about him enough last time). When God called Moses to free the Jews from Egypt he was full of excuses. They can be read in chapter 3 of Exodus. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” “But suppose they do not believe me or listen to my voice;” “suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.” “I am not eloquent; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” “O Lord, please send by the hand whomever else you may send.” Moses had lots of excuses, but not nearly so many as we are capable of making up when we want to ignore our calling.

God heard every excuse Moses had, and He had an answer for all of them. He is the same with us. God will show us why our excuses don’t matter. He may not do it with a burning bush as He did with Moses, but He will. He may take hours, days, or even years to wipe out all our excuses. He knows just how to do it, and He will. If we lack faith in ourselves He will teach us how to have the faith we need. He will remind us He lives within us, and He created us for a purpose. He knew what He was doing when He chose that purpose for us.

Moses listened to God, and spent the next forty years of his life being one of the greatest examples for those following God there has ever been. He overcame his excuses, and did the right thing. Have faith in God, and learn to have faith in the person He made you to be.

If there is a sin you just can’t defeat He will help you defeat it. If He wants you to preach, but you fear speaking in front of others He will show you how. I had that same fear, and God helped me overcome it by allowing me to be a tour guide in Charleston, SC. Can’t really be a good tour guide without talking in front of people. It just doesn’t work.

This is just one way He wiped out excuses I had (I discussed more in my first post). I had a lot of excuses, and He worked on me a long time to destroy every single one. He has done the same thing for lots of people who were making the mistake of ignoring His will because of their excuses. He can do the same for anyone. God can provide for all our needs, and wipe away all our excuses.