Andy Stanley - Reasons vs Excuses
If you think about it, there's a very fine line between an excuse and a reason. One disguises itself as the other. And then over time in our conversation, and then our responses to people are excuses that sound like reasons they become our becauses. And all of us, every single one of us have a short list or maybe a long list of becauses that we, we retreat to or we actually hide behind. You know, why don't you exercise? Because, you know, why don't you eat better? You know, because you know, why haven't you, why do you always, why? Why don't you start? Why don't you finish? You know, why did you quit? Why did you begin that?
You know, to start with, you know, why don't you stay? Why did you leave? You know, why, why, why, why, why don't you just tell her? Why don't you just tell him? Why don't you just forgive them? And whenever these questions come up, we don't, we never say, well, I don't know. You know, because we're rational people. We, we have a reason. And our reason always begins with, because we have a list of becauses. But the truth is, and this is what we're gonna talk about for the next few minutes, our B causes aren't always the causes, right?
There's a difference between a B cause and the actual cause. It's an excuse oftentimes that's masquerading as a cause. It, it's actually just a paper wall, a a manufactured cause. And our language with this tips us off. And when, when we catch somebody else, you know, you know, trying to masquerades or an excuse as a reason, what do we say? We say, you're just making stuff up. We say you're actually just making excuses. You have manufactured a reason. And it's not really a reason. It's a paper wall that you're hiding behind, cowering behind, but you're trying to pass it off as something that is real. That's an actual obstacle. So if you're not careful, if I'm not careful, if we're not careful, we can excuse our life away.
We can, you can excuse a marriage away. You can excuse your family away. You can excuse your relationship with your kids away. You can excuse your health away. You can excuse your faith away. Because if something somebody said to you, something somebody pointed out to you and you've been unwilling to press through for whatever reason, I think if we're gonna fear something, what we should fear, we, we should fear missing out on who we could and should be. If we're gonna fear something, maybe we should fear living behind self-created self-inflicted lie infested paper walls. Walls that rob you and walls that rob the world of you. Lies and reasons that aren't reasons that rob me and rob my family of me.