Little kids do and say some pretty funny things. Like this picture–not sure how I feel this!
Or, I heard once about children who were asked what people do on dates. An 8-year-year old
girl said, “Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each
other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.”
A ten-year-old boy said, “On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually
gets them interested enough to go for a second date.” Ah…the wisdom of children. As a
missionary I heard a little girl say something funny that I still remember. My companion
and I were knocking on doors. At one home, a 4 or 5-year-old girl answered the door.
“Hello,” I said. “Is your mom home?” She said, “My mom told me to tell you she’s
not home right now.” I said, “Okay, could you go ask your mom when she’ll be home?”
“Sure,” said the girl. She turned around and yelled upstairs. “MOM! When will you
be home?” I heard a lot of excuses on my mission, and
I still make some myself. But I try not to, because of something Jesus Christ said in
the first section of the Doctrine and Covenants. It’s a simple one-liner: “What I the Lord
have spoken I have spoken and I excuse not myself.” Jesus
Christ doesn’t make excuses. There’s a lesson in that for us. We shouldn’t make
excuses either. Think about your life—have you made any excuses in the past couple of
days? I used to think it was fine to make excuses, but that changed when Elder Lynn
G. Robbins of the Quorum of the Seventy visited my mission. At a mission conference he taught
us something I will never forget. He said something to the effect of, “Any time you
blame [or] point a finger it will hurt you.” He went on to teach, “Even if you’re right
it will hurt you to make an excuse.” I love that phrase. “Even if you’re right
it will hurt you to make an excuse.” There are many excuses we might be tempted to make.
On one occasion, Alma was talking with his son Corianton. Corianton had made some serious
mistakes by inappropriately pursuing a woman while he was on a mission to the Zoramites.
While we only hear Alma’s side of the conversation, it seems like Corianton tried to justify his
behavior. Alma told Corianton, “She did steal away the hearts of many; but this was
no excuse for thee, my son.” “Everybody else is doing it” was no excuse. The opposite
of making excuses is accepting responsibility for the choices we make. In this same father-son
conversation, Alma told Corianton in chapter 39:13, “Acknowledge your faults and that
wrong which ye have done.” “Acknowledge your faults…” In other
words, if you’ve made a mistake, admit it! Take responsibility. Ultimately, Alma told
Corianton, “Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point.” How can
we tell if we are making excuses or taking responsibility? A major way we can tell the
difference is in the language that we use. Language that accepts responsibility says
that we are in control of our choices. For example, “I will do it.” “I choose not
to…” or “I will do better.” The language of excuses or blaming says that somebody else
is in control, that we are not in control. For example, “I can’t.” “I have to…”
“He made me…” “I don’t have time…” All of these phrases say, “I don’t have
a choice.” Notice what happens when we shift the blame elsewhere. If you ask me for help
and I say, “I don’t have time” then what I’m really saying is, “It’s not
my fault—I’m not in control of my schedule.” But in truth, I am in control. If I don’t
help you it’s not because I don’t have time, but because I choose to do something
different with my time. It’s my choice. And maybe in some instances the choice to
not help somebody will actually be the right choice—because there is something else we
need to do. In those situations, we can own that choice and not make excuses.
Sometimes we try to shift the responsibility for our choices onto others. But Elder Dale
G. Renlund taught, “Blaming others, even if justified, allows us to excuse our behavior.
By so doing, we shift responsibility for our actions to others. When the responsibility
is shifted, we diminish both the need and our ability to act. We turn ourselves into
hapless victims rather than agents capable of independent action…. Instead of making
excuses, let us choose repentance.” We know
that making excuses weakens us—what happens when we take responsibility? In his book,
Love is a Choice, Elder Lynn G. Robbins wrote, “The day you eliminate [excuses] from your
life is the day you take back control of your life and when positive outcomes begin to increase
…We should be of the attitude, ‘I’m in charge of my life and I wouldn’t have
it any other way.’” I know that we find power and strength in our lives when we stop
making excuses and instead take full responsibility for our actions. When I think about Jesus
Christ, I remember that the night before his Crucifixion he could have made an excuse for
why completing his atoning sacrifice would be too hard. But Jesus Christ didn’t make
excuses. We will grow closer to him as we follow his example. I love that he says, “I
excuse not myself.”