Hi, and welcome to the Five Word Prayers Daily, a five-day-a-week daily devotional where we share the

word, prayers, and our heart. I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me,

which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent. I have a feeling we might all just relate

to today's show in at least some way, and I hope instead of thinking of that person who needs to hear this show,

we will ask God to shine the searchlight on us instead. But look, don't let that keep you from

sharing the show, please, because we so appreciate you doing that. But this show is all about

not making excuses. And yeah, we could all probably use a little help with that.

So when my kids were born and as I got into their toddler years and a little bit older, I could

start to see each of them develop little personalities. And as they did, I could see in each of them

different things that would be things that they would need to overcome. One of them in particular

was very stubborn, so I knew my job would be helping them learn that they didn't always get their way.

One of them was very rigid, so I knew I would need to teach them how to be more flexible and go with the flow,

and one of them was always offering an excuse for everything.

So I knew from the start that I would need to teach that particular child to take personal responsibility for everything

they did and said and not blame someone else. It's interesting because even as they've all grown,

they've still maintained who they were at the core, even as little ones, even that thing that I saw

in them then, they have those same obstacles now that as they're much

older young men and women, they now have to work on themselves. And of course, still with our

parenting help. A lot of us, I think, can relate to that child of mine that will remain unnamed

in this area of making excuses because we all kind of do that, I think, although we probably don't want to admit

it for ourselves. We like to think that's other people, and we could probably tell you right now,

at least one person in our life who regularly makes excuses for things. But if we're honest,

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