THE BLAME GAME

“The woman you put…with me…gave me…the fruit, and I ate it.”  Genesis 3:12 – 13

A man smokes 3 packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years, dies of lung cancer and his family sues the tobacco company.  A woman crashes while driving drunk then blames the bartender.  Your kids are out of control so you blame violence on TV, lack of discipline in school or the influence of their friends.  Excuses – we have got hundreds of them!  Our parents failed us…our friends let us down…somebody gave us bad advice…our mate does not understand us.  The blame game is not new; we have been playing it since the dawn of creation.  In Genesis the first couple offered God every excuse in the book to avoid responsibility for their actions.  Adam actually blamed God by saying, “It was the woman you put…with me.”  And Eve was no better; she said, “The snake tricked me.”

Solomon says, “The wise are glad to be instructed…fools fall flat on their faces” [Proverbs 10:8], because the ability to accept responsibility is the measure of your character and maturity.  But more importantly, God cannot forgive and restore you till you acknowledge and turn away from your sin.  Nowhere in Scripture does He ever excuse your sin because of somebody else’s behavior.  In fact, when you make a habit of blaming the other guy you will never reach the place of honest repentance.  The Bible says we will all “appear before Christ and take what is coming to us as a result of our actions” [2 Cor 5:10].  Acknowledging your sins and shortcomings here and now frees you to receive God’s forgiveness and move on to maturity.

Blaming others for our shortcomings and mistakes is usually the way we avoid facing the truth about ourselves.  Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “All blame is a waste of time.  Regardless of how much fault you find, it will not change you.  The only thing blame does is keep the focus off you when you are looking for external reasons to explain your unhappiness or frustration.  You may succeed in making another feel guilty but you will not succeed in changing whatever is making you unhappy.”

The Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness, making a journey that should have taken 11 days [Deut 1:2].  That is because they blamed God, and Moses, and whatever, for all their problems; everything that happened was somebody else’s fault.  Sound familiar?  Solomon says, “Do not try to disclaim responsibility by saying you did not know…God…knows all hearts…and he will reward everyone according to his deeds.”  The truth may be hard to face, but hiding from it does not make it go away.  In fact, until you are willing to admit your mistakes you will keep having problems and fixing blame.  

Remember, Satan will never stop trying to engage you in the blame game through your thoughts and emotions.  And when you go there he wins and you lose!  Paul said, “Do not let yourself be overcome by evil…overcome…evil with good” [Romans 12:21].  Did you get that?  You get to decide how much ground you will give to “the accuser” [Rev 12:10].  Winston Churchill once said, “The price of greatness is responsibility.”  So stop passing the buck, get honest with God and begin to correct the things in your life that are out of order.