Quit making excuses. It’s irritating.

Let’s say there is a Pharaoh that needs to be warned of God’s impending wrath, and God just told you it is your job to deliver the message. How do you react?

Hopefully, you obey immediately. But, odds are that your reaction will be just like Moses’. When commissioned by God to be His messenger to Pharaoh, Moses basically said, “Really? Me? I’m not a good choice. How ’bout you send someone else?” During the conversation recorded in Exodus Chapters 3 and 4, Moses came up with several objections to God’s plan, including:

• I’m nobody. (Exodus 3:11)
• I don’t know how to tell the Hebrews whose authority I’m working under. (Exodus 3:13)
• They won’t believe that You sent me. (Exodus 4:1)
• I’m a horrible public speaker. (Exodus 4:10)
• Basically, Lord, I don’t want to do this. Would you please send someone else. (Exodus 4:13, Amplified Bible, reads: “And he said, Oh, my Lord, I pray You, send by the hand of [some other] whom You will [send].”)

By the time Moses got to excuse number five, God had all the fun He could stand. He put His foot down, Moses reluctantly obeyed, and the rest (as they say) is history.

A lot of times the hardest part of pursuing God’s calling in our lives isn’t knowing what the calling is. It’s obeying the calling!  We hear God’s call, but rather than obey, we immediately start making excuses. God is longsuffering, but at some point, He is going to get tired of our excuses and put His foot down. When He does, be sure to obey. It would be wonderful, of course, if we obeyed without putting up a fight, but we usually don’t. Don’t give up on yourself because of your stubbornness, though, because God doesn’t. Once we stop making excuses, who knows…He may use us in a mighty way just as He did Moses, one of the few people the Bible calls a friend of God (Exodus 33:11).

How would you like to be called God’s friend today? All it would take is to stop making excuses and go deliver the message.

Robbie Romeiser is a commercial real estate broker, real estate instructor, and author of the daily devotional Today’s Quote From God (www.TodaysQuoteFromGod.com). Desiring to help his own children follow God’s calling in their lives, Robbie founded Career Callings (www.CareerCallings.net) to help people find, prepare for, and pursue the work God has called them to do.