Harriett Tubman welcoming you to do the impossible — *The truth is, with every excuse we give, we chip away at the fabric of our character.*

At some point, all of us have had a dream, a vision, a goal of something we’ve wanted to attain or accomplish. Now, while it’s true that legitimate things do come up that can temporarily hinder us from achieving those goals, the truth is-if we’re being honest about it -we’ve used excuses more times than we can count to give reason as to why we haven’t hit our target.

If you’re familiar with the Black Fraternities and Sororities on college campuses, they all share a mantra regarding excuses that says this: Excuses are tools of incompetence, they build monuments of nothingness and those that use them, seldom about to anything.

I bring this up because excuses are easy to use. They are convenient. They provide a momentary spray of perfume on the breaking wind of inaction. Those of us who use excuses feel as if we’ve actually given a good reason to ourselves or to those we are accountable to. But the truth is, with every excuse we give, we chip away at the fabric of our character. We chip away at the God given talent we are born with. We chip away at our confidence. We chip away at our faith, eventually leaving us feeling empty and unable to walk in the good things that God has called us to.

In the scriptures, Solomon encourages us to take a hard look at the ant and how the ant takes action in bringing in food for the harvest and how the ant provides supplies in the summer. He ends this piece of wisdom by saying this: if you continue to sleep on opportunity, make excuses and don’t take action, you will end up with nothing. My friend, the ant doesn’t make excuses as to why it didn’t get fed, The ant doesn’t say to the queen, because my stomach hurts today, I will not be able to bring you the crumb of this delicious blueberry muffin. If we keep making excuses, eventually we have to ask the hard question: What am I good for? Jesus says it like this: You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how will the saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.”

We loose our saltiness by using excuses rather than being bold and taking action. God did not create you for you to make excuses. He created you for you to make an impact. Maybe your excuse is, Alex, I’m too old, I can’t go back to school. Alex, I can’t mend that relationship, it ended in a huge fight. Or Alex, I have way too much debt to ever dream of becoming financially free. Or Alex, I’m just a CNA, leadership will never listen to my ideas. Listen the scripture says it like this, Life and death are in the power of your tongue, and those that love it will eat its fruit. Your excuses are creating an environment of death, where your dreams and your tenacity for life go to die. I want to encourage you to speak life and take action so that what God has placed inside of you will come to fruition.

Don’t allow your excuses to leave a blank page on the accomplishments column of your obituary. Don’t allow your excuses to overshadow the possibilities that God has placed in your heart. Listen my friend, God has fearfully and wonderfully made you in His image. Its time to stop making excuses and start making an impact!