Stop Making Excuses!

"Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

7"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."

8Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk."' John 5:1-8

It seems that we're always coming up with excuses and reasons not to do something. There's always something else we could be doing, or we get distracted by tv or computer, and then we're running behind. The man above made excuses, even while talking to Jesus. It's time to stop making excuses and time to start doing. It's time to stop the procrastinating and putting off for tomorrow what could be done today.

Every day as I look at my children they amaze me. It amazes me how quickly they change, and how many ways they change! They are frequently asking me to play with them, or "can we do this together" and my answer is almost always "we'll see, maybe later." And then later sometimes we do what they've asked, sometimes not. It's time to be rid of that. My children are going to be this age only once. One of these days, Abigail is going to stop asking me to play games with her, and I'll have missed it because I thought it more important to have a shiny sink. The shiny sink can wait.

I could say the same about exercise. Quite simply, I don't do it, my excuse being that I don't have time. I am a mom 24/7, I don't have 20 minutes to myself to do some pilates. Surely I can find something for Zander to do for a short while while I do some form of physical activity here in my home.

And how about really getting to spend time with God? My excuse there is similar to exercise. In order to have alone time, I need to get up very early in the morning to be awake before my kids. They wake up as early as 6:00am sometimes. Which means one of two things needs to happen. Either I need to get up even earlier in the morning, or I need to go find a space where I can have some alone time while my children are busy. Excuses aren't going to cut it. What am I going to say when I am face to face with God. "I'm sorry, my kids like to get up early, and well, sleep was just too important to me to get up even earlier." How do you think that will go over?

Instead of procrastinating, we need to hear Jesus' words and obey. We need to "Get up" and do what needs to be done. No more excuses.