Fear. It can be paralyzing. I believe fear and excuses were born on the same day. Excuses are a dime a dozen. They even have apps to help you come up with a good excuse for various scenarios. As a habitual procrastinator I have created and used excuses for most of my life for things like not making the honor roll, being late to work, not getting a project done on time, being late to meetings, not riding certain roller coasters, being late for a date, needing extra time to finish a paper, being late to pick up my kids, and not posting to my blog regularly. Somewhere along the way, there was some fear involved. Fear that caused a domino effect in too many situations to list.
As a father, fear is not an excuse. “Hey, dad, we really want to ride Achraphobia, but we want you to ride it with us.” When your 10 year old twin daughters are asking you this it is not appropriate to reply, “Girls, I’m too scared so no one can ride it.” Instead, on March 15, 2014, I rode Acrhaphobia with my girls and created a forever memory. I overcame my fear which helped my girls overcome their fear. Did we ride it twice in a row? Um, no.
As a husband, fear is not an excuse. “Well, honey, I’m not aware of all the ramifications of you having Huntington’s Disease and I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to handle it. With that said, I’m just going to cash out and move on with my life.” Unless things have changed the vow doesn’t say, “in sickness and in health unless one of us is too scared.”
As a pastor, fear is not an excuse. I recently started working with a coach who is helping me set some goals to make more disciples. Disclaimer: Insert negative comment about previous coaching/conference experiences. I struggle with making new connections. I say “hey” to a lot of people in my community, but very rarely go deeper than that. It is a huge hurdle for me and I also believe for our church. If I’m not meeting non-churched people then how can I expect anyone else to. After about 50 minutes it hit me that the number 1 determent to me doing this was a fear of rejection. This has been a crippling fear for me, unspoken and filed away. So many things left undone. Ideas unrealized. Dreams dashed. All because somewhere in my mind I froze on the follow through because I feared people would reject the finished product. I feared they would reject me.
Being the smallest guy in your class is not something I would wish on anyone. When you’re that last one picked a lot you tend to remember that time in 8th grade gym class when your bottom of the last inning grand slam ended the game and the week on a high note. When you’re the smallest guy on the baseball team then you are not going to be asked to pitch. This will cause you to think that you can’t pitch which means you’ll never ask anyone to teach you to pitch. Which means you’ll be 38 years old with a bucket of unopened baseballs in your basement because…you just want to pitch. Why didn’t I ask the coach if I could pitch? Same reason I didn’t date a lot of cheerleaders. Fear of rejection.
I have never been in a better spot in my life to rest on my excuses. I am coming off 2 years of various personal injuries ranging from bulging discs in my neck, to concussion and PTSD, and a stress fracture in my foot. I have seen changes in my family dynamic as my wife started developing the symptoms to Huntington’s Disease and began the treatment process. I have spent more days in bed this past year than I care to own up to. Days where everything ached from the inside out and sleep was the only safe place. There are some things you can’t sleep off.
Why isn’t our church growing? Insert excuse. Why aren’t I making more connections with people outside the church? Insert excuse. Why am I losing my temper on a regular basis with my kids? Insert excuse. Why am I 50 pounds over weight? Excuses. Why are dreams written on paper but not reality? You get the picture.
Fear leads to laziness. Why put in the effort if I’ve already got my excuse ready? I’ve recently realized that many people have million dollar ideas, but only a few have million dollar hustle(Yes, I tweeted that and you can too, below.) I have never been known for my hustle. I can hear every single coach I ever had ringing in my ears about my lack of hustle. Why not hustle? Because I might get hurt. No really, why not hustle? Because what if I give 100% and it’s not good enough? What if I hustle and still come in last in the race? What if I hustle and still get beat to every loose ball on the basketball court? What if I hustle and pump out 1000 word blog posts every day and no one reads them? What if I create a podcast network and it fails and no one listens? What if I pound the pavement in my city to meet the movers and shakers and the down and out and they say thanks, but no thanks?
I know what some of you are thinking. “Heath, you’ve got to read this book by Jon Acuff called Start.” I read it in a day. I stayed in bed the next. Now, in my defense, I was suffering(and probably still am to some degree) from depression. Medical. Proven. Prescription Filled. Not using it as an excuse. Just saying.
Some of you are thinking, “Heath, you just need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps.” I don’t own boots. If I did they would not have straps, but nevertheless I want to show you where to put said strapless boots.
Others will criticize my lack of faith. “Well, if you just believed more then you could overcome this.”
I wish I could point to a singular moment where things changed for me. As I write this it has been over 8 weeks since my last day of not getting out of bed. It was a lot of baby steps over time. It was the “What about Bob?” method. It wasn’t the usual “let’s make 20 major life decisions and changes at once because Happy New Year!” approach.
I think I woke up one day and decided that whatever excuse I had wasn’t going to be good enough. Have I gone to the gym the past few days? No. Do I have a valid excuse? No. Am I a work in progress?
So, I find myself in the land full of excuses, but they don’t taste the same anymore. What once was sweet is now bitter. What once made me proud has now humbled me. I think it occurred to me that at the end of my life I can either hand Jesus a crown or a fistful of excuses. I realized I didn’t want my children to have to use my fear as an excuse for not sucking the marrow out of life for themselves.
I wish I could now lay out the master plan from point A to point B to point C. I wish I had a product ready to offer, a podcast ready to launch, a book ready to publish. I wish I could tell you that the argument whether video or audio publishing is better weren’t still going on in my head. I wish I had an email list for you to sign up for.
You see, I’ve read all the “how to” books. Social Media. Leadership. Building a Platform. Making disciples. I’ve taken all the courses. Creating a digital product. Creating a membership site. Podcasting 101. Creating a discipling culture. I no longer qualify for the “I would’ve done it, but I didn’t know how to” crew.
I am a man without excuses. I still have my fears, but they no longer have me. I’ll hit publish on this post not knowing if anyone will read it. I’ll tweet it out not knowing if it’s just another vain attempt that will get lost in the muddle of cyberspace. I’ll post it on Facebook and it may get a few likes. Some may even comment and share. I won’t know who’s seen it. I won’t know who’s waiting on me to succumb to my fears and fall flat on my face. Don’t hold your breath. Besides, I just typed my manifesto. What’s your excuse?