No Good Excuse

In what is commonly known as the parable of the great feast, Jesus describes how a man prepared a feast and invited many people. Each potential guest politely declined with a lame excuse.

Let’s be honest. What is our initial response to God’s invitations to us in comparison to this parable? Do we tend to make excuses when we receive an invitation to sit at the table with Jesus?

Luke 14:15 says, “Blessed be the man who will eat the feast in the kingdom of God” (NIV).

We sometimes dismiss invitations from the Lord without a second thought. At the age of ten, I made a personal decision to accept Christ’s invitation to salvation and surrendered my heart. However, immediately following that decision, a waterfall of excuses cascaded over my life. The next step of obedience was accepting the gift of baptism. Of course, I had an excuse not to: going public would mean getting out of my comfort zone. I chose my comfort zone over the Lord’s promised blessings. The Bible made it clear time and time again that my next step of faith ought to be baptism. Professing my new life publicly, washing my sins away in the water representing God’s pure forgiveness, and being raised up out of the water a new follower of Christ seemed legit. It made sense. However, I was uncomfortable at the thought of people seeing me get a little wet. What a no-good excuse!

For years, I struggled with this decision, as the call to baptism was undoubtedly laid on my heart over and over again by my heavenly father. It became second nature to push the invitation straight to the back of my mind. Like all those people who turned down the feast, I missed out.

Finally, though, my day of repentance arrived. A twentysomething wife and mother, I was at last ready to obey and be baptized. As our forgiving father always does, he lovingly wrapped his arms around me and rejoiced. New invitations followed.  But reading his Word, sharing the gospel, and obeying his commands still did not come naturally. Eventually I made time to dig into his Word, and I sought to understand the importance of obedience. Once I began to inch my chair up to the table to feast in the kingdom, my life was abundantly blessed, and time with the Lord became something I saw as a gift rather than a sacrifice.

Still, years later, I can be quick to respond to the Lord’s invitations with a No or a Maybe, rather than with a simple Yes, Lord. Why?

We may view the Lord’s invitations as commands that require sacrifice. How often do we miss birthday parties, pool parties, or get-togethers with friends because we are simply “too busy”? Do we treat a date with our Savior the same way?

What invitation is God extending to you today? What excuse are you willing to forego in order to freely accept his invitation?

Lindsay Hart is a wife, mother of two, and elementary school teacher. She is on a mission to obey God doing whatever it takes to follow His commands in her life. Her obedience led to life changes such as taking time off work to focus on her family. Lindsay enjoys sharing her “God stories” and helping people grow closer to Christ. She blogs at lovedfirstbygod.wordpress.com.