EXCUSES - Revd Oluwamuyiwa Okuseinde

Never let your mouth cause you to sin and don’t proclaim in the presence of the angel, “My promise was a mistake,” for why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy what you’ve undertaken?" (Ecclesiastes 5:6, International Standard Version). 

Excuses. That is something you don't need in your life at any point in time. But human beings love to present excuses for their laziness, errors, weaknesses, incompetence and failures. We give excuses to God, to fellow men and even to ourselves. Man, why don't you stop making excuses and giving needless explanations? Why don't you just get up for once and do something worthwhile with your time, energy and resources? God hates excuses and they make Him angry. If you will rid yourself of excuses, you will make a lot of progress in life and advance greatly in your relationship with God. 

Many years ago when God called me into full time ministry service, there was acute shortage of resources to prosecute the mandate handed over to me. But I didn't let that become an excuse for non-performance or failure. I sure didn't do everything I believed I should do, but I did my best in the circumstances. If I should have any regret, it is that I think I should have pushed a little harder, gone a bit higher and put some more effort than I did. That way, perhaps I would have achieved a bit more. 

I remember arriving a particular city with my team to run a ministers conference, a flagship program of our ministry. When my friend who helped us secure the venue came to see us as we set up for the meeting, he looked around and asked, "where are your public address system?" All I had then for public address system was a medium-sized twin-speaker cassette player commonly found in the sitting room of the average middle class family in my country at the time. When I pointed at the cassette player, my friend exclaimed, "What! You mean this is what you use for your meetings? How about all of your messages I have listened to on tapes? Don't tell me this is what you use to produce them". When I answered in the affirmative, my friend could only say with noticeable bewilderment, "You really must be a serious guy". 

You see, it is a bad workman that complains of his tools. When and where there is a will, there usually will be a way. If the way does not appear immediately, it will appear eventually if you sustain the will. So shut down the excuse valve in the engine of your life. A friend of mine, announced to me few weeks ago that she was commencing a degree in law. She's in her early '50s. She has a ton of excuses for which she should not have bothered to proceed with that dream. But she had the will, and the rest of her being just followed her will. If your will is in place, your progress is certain because nothing can clog your wheel.