What's your excuse?

Have you heard or read the lyrics to the song “live with abandon” by the Newsboys.  If not, you can do so by clicking below :-)

Most of my life I have been extremely passionate about whatever I’m doing and all of it has been done in the name of Jesus.  I certainly have not always done it perfectly and I fail often, but I have always had that desire to “live with abandon.”  

If you think I”m a bit over-the-top now, you should have known me 30 years ago.    I had all the youthful energy I needed, a bold and, Bart would say, brazen personality, and loads of passion.   This often created bull-in-the-china-closet recklessness that got me in trouble, but most of the time people recognized that my heart was in the right place.

I heard the song I referenced above:

I wanna live with abandon

Give you all that I am

Every part of my heart Jesus I place in your hands 

I wanna live with abandon

As I listened to the song I realized that I had all kinds of reasons why I couldn’t do that anymore.  Living with abandon in a youthful, energetic, healthy body is much easier that doing so now.   Living with abandon as a single person was so much easier than being a clergy spouse with twelve children and seven grandchildren.   Living with abandon was much easier when I had the world all figured out, everything was black and white, and I knew everything like most people do at 20.   Now it’s so much more complicated.

I realized though, that these are all excuses…. that living with abandon is a choice.  Maybe it has to be modified some as our age and responsibilities change, but it’s a choice.   There really is no excuse.

Jesus wants all of us …. even if what we believe we have to give is insufficient, He doesn’t believe that.  He just asks for it all.  And for Him that’s enough.

So what’s your excuse today?  Let’s rid ourselves of all of the reasons why it’s not possible to live with abandon and make the choice to do so today!