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no excuses

no excuses

There are no excuses, only choices.

I shared that observation with our church family this last Sunday as part of the report given by our mission trip team. We had just returned from eleven days in West Virginia — we, being four adults and six high school students. That observation was underlined once more for me by what I saw and by what we did. We spent five days painting and repairing a home in a town in southwest West Virginia and spent several more days enjoying the West Virginia mountains and the challenge of play in the mountains.

One of our students, limited from birth by cerebral palsy, joined several of us in leaping ten feet from the top of a rock into the waters of the New River. He did not let his physical limitatations provide him an excuse, but did what he very much wanted to do!

Another student, skeptical of camping and her ability to “survive” the rigors of rafting and rock climbing and hard work, did just fine. She did not stay home; she did not hang back; she did not excuse herself from engaging these new experiences, but chose to go over the edge into the unknown … quite literally!

I have said many times to my own children that family history or genetic history may provide a reason or an explanation for certain behaviors, but not an excuse. We make choices. We do not choose what we are or what befalls us, but we do choose what we will do with what we have and how we will respond to what befalls us.

Too many of us are limited by our own lack of vision, our own lack of courage … our own lack of faith. Don’t give up! Don’t beat yourself! Embrace life and all its possibilities! Embrace God and all God is ready to do for you and with you!

point of no return?

point of no return?

I remember pulling hard and fast on the paddle, propelling my whitewater canoe forward with the accelerating current toward the brink of Wonder Falls, an eighteen-foot falls on the Big Sandy River. I remember the point of no return, when I knew there was no turning back, no turning around, when I knew that I was committed, that one way or another I was going over the falls!

I made the choice to be there. I made the choice to run the falls. But once I passed that point of no return, I had no more choice … We make countless choices every day that commit us, countless choices we cannot undo. We cannot stop and say “Ooops. I want a ‘do-over.'” or “Wait a minute. I changed my mind.”

Maturity is about taking responsibility for our commitments, about understanding the consequences — and the gravity — of our choices … about thinking carefully, choosing decisively, acting boldly, and accepting whatever befalls us. We can learn from our mistakes; we just cannot undo them. The choices I make in this one moment inexorably alter the options I have available in the next.

And yet … And yet …

It seems to me that the gospel of Jesus Christ changes the rules about points of no return. Not absolving us of our responsibilities, not denying the very real consequences of our choices, but somehow reaching us, holding us, saving us when we have passed what we thought was the point of no return. There is no point beyond which the love of God cannot reach us! There is no point beyond which the grace of God cannot bring us back! I am never — never! — committed to a failed life, never — never! — doomed to hell. There is always for us — for any of us — the possibility of forgiveness, of justice, of mercy, of grace.

Now that is something for which to be thankful!