Excused From Life…
Ephesians 5:6 Amplified Bible (AMP)
6Let no one delude and deceive you with empty excuses and groundless arguments [for these sins], for through these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of rebellion and disobedience.
I have been through a lot of things in life. I have meet many people from all different walks of life who have been through a variant of different things; some not as intense, some as severe and some were by far more horrific that I could imagine. But the one thing I have noticed is those who have come to know God, do not use their past experiences as an excuse to stay in a place of being lame, or to be mistrusting of people or have an awful attitude. They are in refusal to continue to sit by the pool waiting for someone to put them in to be healed, they are in refusal to sit by the temple gates and beg for alms, they will not continue to lie upon the mat of the affliction, or the bed of pain and sorrow that attacked their life. They see how God is moving in spite of; they are able to see how much worse it could be. They praise God for what didn’t happen in spite of what did. They are not giving excuses to stay lame, hurt, or in a place of being the victim. God knows where I would be if I allowed all that I have been through to affect my living, if I was looking for a pass to treat people a certain way because I had been hurt, and my story in many respects dictates I should be that way, BUT GOD!
My Grandmother Oliver when she was alive was an awesome person, but there was a side of her that was a trip, which only got worse when she had a stroke. She let her affliction become the condition and the state in which she lived. She would say hurtful things to people especially my mother without thought or apologies. She thought she had a right to it, thought this is just who I am often rang out. Our trials come for a reason, they come to make us strong, they come to build character, now what kind of character becomes up to us, because if we are leaning and depending on our own feelings our own resources and our own sight most likely the character will become brash and we can adopt an attitude of take no prisoners and we will let anything come out of our mouth in the defense that we will never let certain things happen to us again. We can become non-emotional, guarded, we can become a user, and we can lack the ability to know how to really love in a healthy way because we have become so toxic because we are still sitting in a pool of our past experiences soaking in the toxins. Our past has become our present and we have willingly given it access to our future. Excuses are just a sentiment designed to keep us from having to do anything to change what is wrong or correct something that may require correcting. Excuses keep us living like hell and treating people the same, because we are wrapped in the pain and betrayals of our past. Excuses are a passport to nowhere fast and not living to the fullest.
Submitting all to God, will build character, it will help us to become compassionate, loving and more caring. It will birth in us forgiveness that is unmatched and not understood by most. Some of the people I have had the greatest pain because of I spend time with and they are still in my life and I have placed the pain of their action into the frontier of forgiveness. I have learned to utilize the pain of the past as lesson for my future and they are aids to help encourage someone else, when they are in a similar place, they are not excuses not to live, not let God use us or to go where He calls us to. They should not be the fear that motivates our offense nor the anger that promotes our defense. Our past is just that, it has already passed, it is gone. I am not making light of the things people go through. But I have met people who were willing to forgive someone that killed a parent right in front of them and they went on to do great things, I have seen young women raped and molested repeatedly get up and teach on survival, but they still were some of the kindest people you would ever want to meet, and they went on to have quality love and families. I have met people who have survived disease and illness and come out smiling daily with a positive outlook on life, thanking God for the days that they are able to see. Not complaining about what they do not have.
My God daughter just went through two horrible challenges yesterday, but instead of crawling up in a ball and crying woo is me, which she would have been in her right to do, she glorified God for what He had kept her family from and how she still trusted Him. How many of us could say the same after a miscarriage and a fire at our home all on the same day? Probably not many we remember how we were talked about by family or done wrong by a man or woman, how we broke a nail and we are ready to fold it up and throw our hands up. Stop making excuses for not living, not doing, not really being who God desires for you to be. Stand up, rise up, get your bed of past afflictions and walk, right passed your past to a brighter future hide in Christ. For it is true that God makes everything beautiful in His own time, if we let Him…Forgetting those things which are behind, and pressing towards the upward mark, the prize of the high calling which is “IN” Christ Jesus!
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