reasonable excuses...

It seems to me that there are reasons, and excuses, some use one but it's really the other, some can be both i think.
Being too tired can be a good reason, but only you know if it's really an excuse, being too tired for work/church/prayer, but with same symptoms, not too tired to go and see mates, stay up all night watching tv, suddenly it's an excuse.
I ask God to help me see when i'm making excuses, because it is habit forming, and it helps me evade my commitments and responsibilities and become someone unreliable and a bit dishonest to myself.
Last night i heard someone give a reason why they couldn't be at church meeting, it was an excuse actually as they could have been there if they had wanted to, perhaps at least they tried, whereas many members don't even do that.
My problem is that i sometimes see the excuses through the reasons people give, it makes me hard hearted, i am sorting out their splinter, whilst ignoring my plank as it were. God knows the heart, mine and each persons, i'll let him make the call on reason or excuse.

lettting the know.

i was waiting to turn left out of the junction this morning, when the car in front of me started to roll backwards towards me, after a good hour (few seconds) i decided to get his attention and let him know what was happening using the horn. He stopped just short of me, then got out! uh oh. he came stowards me knuckles scraping on the floor, said, 'did i miss hehehe.' i said 'sorry, yes' he stuck his thumb up and loped away.
when do you tell someone that they are in danger, especially if its personal or private, what are the risks and are they worth it? what sort of friend are we if we don't, what sort of person are we if we do?

wrong way up

Good point....Paul spends lots of time, talking about and praying for people to grow deeper, stronger, more faithful in the spirit, and then tags on the end, about healing, family, finances. We however spend our time praying for, or asking for healing, family blessing or financial blessing and then tag on the end,o by the way, deeper, stronger Holy Spirit Lord...Amen...

when

By the way, when do you stop offering people something they obviously aren't interested in?

undoing

England win 2 matches in a row at Rugby. Most other games they've got into trouble trying to undo the mistaks and mess they've got into, instead of being creative and flamboyant and on the offensive, they give away penalties and have to start from a worse position than when they started. Spot the spiritual link!

Good deal

Sometimes you hear that someone has said something which makes you burst out laughing. One of the kid's friends mums got re-married already having 2 boys she wasn't sure she wanted any more. Her new man friend wanted a child though, so she said, ' you convert the loft space, i'll give you a baby! sounds like a fair deal to me!

wrestling

Over the years i have spent a lot of time wrestling with the nature of church what it was, what it is, what it should be, always with various levels of frustration. I have in my time said that church as it is is irrelevant, that we should have youth church, oldies church, New testament church, but i have changed my mind, it could be my age/stage, but here is my wrestling. I know church is about people, not about a certain place, day and time. I know that there will come a day whne we meet in houses, and find ourselves under pressure (could be from anywhere). I know that for many church is irrelevant and dull, meaningless. And i know that a lot of what we do isn't strictly necessary to the formation of church. But i love that church, place day and time, Jesus loves the church in all its forms, it seems that those who object loudest to place day and time, are those who won't submit their diary to anything other than themselves, their tastes to anyone but themselves. God puts the orphans with families not groups of orphans, same with widows, there may not be any church with any profile at all, no gathering, no leadership, no servanthood, nothing, if we leave it to the freeform thinkers of this current generation.