Thursday Tune-up: Excuses

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Setting goals, and then following through with them, is never easy. There are a million reasons excuses why our goals can't be met. I'll just name a few for starters.

• Too busy? Yes!
• Not enough money? Absolutely!
• Too tired? No doubt!

All true, but all merely excuses. We work hard to come up with a list that validates our resistance to change. Too bad we don't work that hard to actually change!

Before this year began I prayerfully set a few goals that I knew God wanted me to fulfill. And I'm doing pretty well with most of them. But there's one goal that isn't so easy. That's the one about singing more in church. I've been so reluctant to add my name to the sign-up sheet that Pastor Dad took the initiative and signed me up to sing on Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago. Yikes! Sunday morning prime time!

Yes, we're still married.   :)

It isn't that I mind singing. I love being part of the choir. It's that whole "solo" thing that scares me. As a matter of fact, that day I confessed to a friend in the choir that I was very nervous. As my time to sing grew closer the butterflies in my stomach began reaching into my chest and snatching my breath away. I felt like I was alternating between swallowing and gulping. Desperately, I prayed for the Lord to help me get through my song without making a fool of myself. And that's when I felt like the Lord replied, "Oh, I see! So it's all about you! You're more concerned about what everyone will think of you than what they will think of me." I was both shocked and reproved. I had been totally focused on myself and not on the Savior I wanted to glorify. I'd like to say that I wasn't nervous after that little spiritual peptalk but I'd prefer not to add lying to my list of trangressions. However, I did make it through the song without a meltdown or chirping like a hiccuping Minnie Mouse.

What about you? Are you doing the things God is telling you to do? If not, why not? If you don't think you have the time perhaps you need to be realistic about your time management. How much time do you spend watching television on any given day, or reading books, or listening to the radio, or reading blogs? (Ouch!)

Do you need more convincing? Perhaps you need to read those verses in Exodus chapters 3 and 4 where Moses argued with God over his ability to do the job that God was calling him to do. God didn't buy that whole self-deprecating "Who am I?"speech! And when Moses made the claim that he wasn't an eloquent speaker God got angry. If even Moses couldn't compose a list of reasons to convince God to let him off the hook I'm reasonably sure that God isn't impressed by our petty list of excuses either!