We Can Always Find An Excuse

“Do not run until your feet are bare and your throat is dry. But you said, ‘It’s no use! I love foreign gods, and I must go after them.’ ” – Jeremiah 2:25.

He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God’s sight.” – Luke 16:15.

Peruvian farmers plant the coca shrub in the thin soils of the Andes, then nurture it to maturity. They harvest the leaves, chew them freely as a stimulant, and sell their bounty to drug syndicates who extract the white alkaloid from the leaves to smuggle for sale around the world, particularly the United States.

One writer asked some Peruvians if they didn’t feel badly for the harm done by the coca they produced. They didn’t use it or supply it to addicts, they replied. It was just a business to them. Yes, they admitted, perhaps it was wrong “but how else can we make a decent living?”

Like the Peruvians, we justify nearly any behavior, attitude, or sin that we feel offers us an advantage. If it isn’t economics, it’s social, or relational, or even religious. Enough careers exist that pose no intentional threat to human welfare to free us from working in those that do. If friends don’t let friends drive drunk, neither do friends impose illegal behaviors on friends just to prove their friendship.

Courtesy of Speaker’s Sourcebook of New Illustrations by Virgil Hurley © 1995 by Word, Incorporated.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV © 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
Used by permission. All rights reserved.