As I flipped open my cell phone this morning to shut the alarm off I was trying to remember why I had set it in the first place. All I could remember in those few seconds in my state of fresh awakening was that it was the weekend and I didn't have to teach. Then it hit me... SUNDAY! Yup, it was Sunday morning! I glanced over to see my sleeping beauty of a roommate start to arouse from her deep slumber and I blurted out "Hey do you want to go to Taichung?" Funny... I didn't know my voice sounded like that in the morning or that it could be so loud! She just gave me her typical morning look of "huh? Did you say something? What did you say?" So I asked her again. We finally came to the conclusion that if we did go we'd have to leave RIGHT NOW and be late.
Hmm... thoughts started to pop in my head and I started to think of alternatives for the situation. If we stayed home we could go to the Chinese church, but then I figured I'd probably end up nodding off now and then, and walk away without having any idea of what the Pastor had been saying. That didn't sound very encouraging. We could stay at home, sing some songs, and listen to a sermon online, but that would make me feel like I had, in some way, cheated my way out of attendance. I had also told my mother the night before that I would probably go to church, and at the end of the conversation she said to go to church and remember to read my Bible and pray. How many times have I heard that over and over again, but today it seemed to stand out more in my memory.
That was it, it wasn't a choice of whether or not I wanted to go, I was going, even though I knew I'd probably be late. No more excuses. I knew God was going to encourage me today but for this encouragement I need to make an effort to be there, even if it seem rather inconvenient and hard to get to. So Christina and I hurried and got ready to go, and were on our way.
"If you make excuses you'll be making excuses for the rest of your life." I heard this statement years ago but it still comes to mind whenever the word "excuse" comes across my path. It's so easy to give excuses for not doing something that we know God is prompting us to do, or things we know we should do. Even though our excuses may be truthful and full of good intentions it's still just an excuse if God has asked something of us that we don't want to or aren't going to do.
I've been thinking about excuses a lot lately, especially knowing that we're going to be returning to the states in just a few short months. What am I going to make time for in the upcoming days? Will they be things that God is wanting me to take time to invest in or will it be something that I just want to do? How sold out for Christ do I really want to be each day? So that's the daily challenge that I'm taking on. It's one thing to know what to do, it's another thing to do it. Just some thoughts from my brain to yours!
Mai Lewis
