Excuses

I was thinking about this in the last few days and a few weeks before, and it kind of troubled me.  Far too often we make excuses, we always seem to make an excuse not to spend time with God, fellowship with other believers, go to church, attend prayer meeting, read our Bibles, or pray.  There always seems to be an excuse ranging from, "I'm too busy with school.", "I have family stuff." (this one in a way is a bit more legit, but still), "I have exams.", "I'm not in town." (again, pretty legit, but sometimes it's overused), "It's too early/late." (pick whichever one that applies), "It's too expensive." or whatever you choose dependent on the situation.  Now I don't want to say that when we do have family stuff or things that have been planned for a long time those are excuses, but I'm talking about those time where we actively look for a reason not to become closer with God through prayer, reading the Word, being fed, and fellowshipping.

Last night this came up again in a meeting I had with some of my brethren.  The topic of prayer meeting came up and why some people may not attend it.  I have to admit that sometimes after tutoring for 3+ hours up in Brampton, the allure of going home, taking a shower, spending some time with mom and dad, snuggling up in my warm bed and watching tv beckons me home, especially when it is crummy outside, case in point two weeks ago with the first substantial snowfall of this season.  What troubled me even more was someone helping another person make an excuse for her not to attend.  The fact that we are serving in the church, are at the actual church building 3+ times a week, being in fellowship with one another does not replace the power and need for prayer at weekly prayer meetings.

I think that when this was brought up again last night it hit more of a chord with me because I do not feel that my own prayer life has been going all that well.  And I look forward then to prayer meeting because I can have some good time of prayers with other brothers and sisters around me, supporting me and such.  Even if I have had a sucky week in terms of prayer, there is that light on Wednesday evenings that may provide a spark for me and to hear about answered prayers and others' prayer requests.

From there we breached the topic of why some people may not come to fellowship, namely our fellowship.  Since we meet relatively early on a Saturday morning and cater to university students, some of the excuses we get are: "It's too early." and "I have to study/do homework."  However, I remember that when we made the switch to Saturday mornings, we did so to cater to those coming home, to give people a chance to come out on a Saturday morning instead of missing fellowship on a Friday night.  We talked about whether our "programs" were fulfilling the needs of our fellowship, and why people are still not coming out.

I don't know, last night just made me think about the excuses we make--the examples above are more so on a "social" aspect--but can it not also be indicative of our personal walks??  I feel that the excuses we make are actual choices not to spend time with God.  This may be my own personal opinion, but what personal excuses are we making not to spend time with God.  Thinking about this made me reflect back on a conversation I had with a fellow brother about a month ago, where we need to make the choice to read our Bible, even if we do not feel the urge to do so, God can still reveal himself to us.  We need to make the choice to pray, I was reminded of this of a recent Sunday School where the teacher was saying that one of the things that he did right in his times of darkness was to not stop praying.

I feel that the choices I have been making recently have really been Jesus-centred, as per the sermon on Sunday.  I have been making choices to read my Bible, making the choice to pray (albeit, I feel that I am still lacking in this department, but I know that God will work), making the choice to go to prayer meeting, fellowship, and church, and making choices where I know that I will be stretched!  I really don't want to make excuses anymore, I pray that God continues to help me make Jesus-centred choices and avoid excuses that I can only see are from Satan.