Excuses

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INSURANCE EXCUSES

These are all true reasons people used on insurance forms in the UK. Although amusing, you may need to be a little sensitive with these and say beforehand that these are not to make fun of accidents or people who have been affected by accidents.

If it helps, you are welcome to say that this assembly was put together by someone whose brother was killed in a car accident.

  • Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have
  • I thought my window was down but I found it was up when I put my head through it
  • The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him
  • In an attempt to kill a fly I drove into a telegraph pole
  • I had been driving for around 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident
  • The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention
  • An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished
  • The pedestrian had no idea which way to run so I ran over him
  • The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week
  • I don’t know who was to blame for the accident; I wasn’t looking
  • I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.

WHY DO WE MAKE EXCUSES?

Here are some reasons:

  • To get us out of trouble…
  • To save us work and effort…
  • Because we are afraid of failing and we don’t want to risk something…
  • Because we don’t know what we are doing…
  • Because we aren’t used to taking responsibility for our actions…
  • Because we’ve messed up…
  • Because we don’t want to look stupid in front of others…
  • Because we’re trying to hide something
  • Because we’ve done something wrong and know it but don’t want to admit that
  • Because we don’t want to do something

Can you think of any other reasons?

STORY TO ILLUSTRATE

Florence Chadwick was the first woman to ever swim the English Channel. However, she failed on her first attempt when she was only half a mile away from the French shore. Why? Because the fog came down and a little voice whispered to her ‘you won’t make it.’ When she was hauled into the boat and found how near she’d come she was gutted. BUT she didn’t stay knocked back, she went back and did the swim again (not the same day!) and guess what? She made it and set a new world record!

POINT

It’s often easier not to try something and use an excuse to cover it up rather than fail, face our fears or make a decision. However, we need to grab hold of life in every opportunity – the opportunity may never come up again. You CAN do it and even if you don’t, what does it matter? Often the only way to learn and succeed is to try, fail and get back up again like Florence Chadwick.

More than that, as Christians, we believe that God is on our side, helping us in all that we do. There is a story in the Bible about some spies who went into a foreign land that God had promised to give them. The people were giants and the spies came back and said – ‘no way, we’ll never beat them, don’t bother..’ But there were 2 men called Joshua and Caleb and they said, ‘Not true. They may be bigger but God is on our side and has promised us we will win – let’s go for it.’

Be a Joshua or a Caleb with your life! Don’t make excuses, make an impact!