Looking for Blame in All the Wrong Places

Suggested Reading: Proverbs 19:1-8

When my son was very young, he had a problem with assigning blame to the wrong people. For instance, he would trip because he wasn't paying attention and then say that he had been pushed by whomever was behind him.  Or he would trip into you and hit his nose on your leg because he couldn't stop fast enough and then say that you kicked him.  When something happened that hurt or was unpleasant he couldn't bring himself to understand that he had any responsibility for it. He always assumed it was someone else's fault.  It nearly drove me crazy, but he did grow out of it. Now I can trust that when he says, "Somebody pushed me," that someone probably did push him.

Unfortunately, when it comes to God, many of us never grow out of that stage.  Proverbs 19:3 describes this phenomenon: "A man's own foolishness leads him astray, yet his heart rages against the Lord" (HCSB) . Quite often we get ourselves into messes that we then blame on God.  We mishandle our finances and then blame God for not providing for us better. We ignore our spouse and children and then blame God when our family falls apart.  We  make an unwise relationship decision and then blame God for not bringing the "right" person into our life.

We rationalize our blame of God by saying that God is all-powerful and should have prevented the bad decision or that, God is supposed to be loving and so God shouldn't let us go through heartbreak or difficulty.  When the truth of the matter is, God is honoring our own decisions and letting the consequences of those decisions play out. But we would rather blame someone else than look at ourselves and admit where we've messed up, so we presume to arrogantly blame God for the messes we have created.

Fortunately, when we find ourselves facing the consequences for our actions, God does offer us hope. In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God warns the Israelites that when they suffer the consequences for their own bad decisions that "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land" (NIV).  God offers forgiveness and help in the wake of bad decisions and sinful choices, but we must be willing to "turn from our wicked ways" which is impossible if we can't own up to them. Oh, we may silently admit that we did something wrong and secretly commit to do better, but such commitments never last. Lasting change normally doesn't come until we are able to own up to what we have done rather than feel the need to hide it.

God wants to help us deal with the consequences of foolish decisions, but nothing can change while we are blaming God for our own mistakes. Let's own up to our mistakes and not waste time blaming God.

Dealing with Cain's Login Errors

Suggested Reading: Genesis 4:1-16

Not long ago I had one of those frustrating computer moments. I was trying to login to one of my online accounts and I kept getting the error message that my user ID and password didn't match. So I kept trying different passwords in an attempt to get something to work. Nothing did. I just kept getting that same error message. After about 15 attempts I finally stopped long enough to look at my user ID and noticed that I had left out a letter in the ID. After that, I tried the very first password again and within seconds I had logged in. I felt rather embarrassed that I had gotten so frustrated about forgetting my password only to discover that something else had been the problem all along.

In the story of Cain and Abel we see a similar dynamic in Cain's descent to murder. He and his brother had both brought offerings to the Lord but only Abel's had been accepted, probably because Abel had offered the first fruits, the first-born of his herds, while Cain had just brought some of the produce the ground had produced, not the first fruits of his crops. Whatever the reason, God had a conversation with Cain about the rejection of his offering, asking "Why are you so angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?" (Genesis 4:6-7, NIV). The fact that Cain then went out and murdered his brother Abel would seem to indicate that his anger was directed in the wrong place. He either murdered Abel because his brother had made him angry by showing him up (not an uncommon emotional response) or in order to get back at God for accepting Abel's offering but not his own. In either case, Cain directed his anger and probably the blame for his failure somewhere other than where it should have been: on himself.

Quite often, as sinful human beings, we find ourselves doing horrible things we never would have imagined doing beforehand: killing people, having affairs, cheating on our taxes, lying. And quite often the first step along the path to those unimaginable deeds is blaming someone else for our own failures. Affairs often start because one spouse blames the other for not meeting his or her unrealistic expectations. Cheating on taxes or stealing from the office is justified because we manage our money poorly and then blame the government for taking too much or our bosses for not paying us enough. The first step on the road to unimaginable deeds is frequently placing the blame for our failures anywhere but on ourselves, which, apparently, is exactly what Cain did.

Have you experienced anger so deep that you feel tempted to do things you know are wrong? Have you felt so cheated or under-appreciated that you consider doing things that would previously have been unfathomable? If our reaction to those feelings is the temptation to knowingly do something wrong, we have a problem. Instead of placing blame on other people for our own failures, lets take good long looks at ourselves. Just like when trying a dozen different passwords instead of checking the user ID, putting the blame in the right place will help us fix our problems a whole lot faster than laying our failures at someone else's feet.

Looking for Blame in All the Wrong Places

Suggested Reading: Romans 7:7-25

One of the frustrations of parenting is that nearly all children go through a phase where they blame their parents when they get in trouble. Instead of looking at themselves when they face consequences for hurting someone, they get mad at you for giving out the consequences. Rather than dealing with the fact that they lied, they get angry with you for calling them on it. The reaction is perfectly in keeping with human nature and, fortunately, most of us grow out of this phase. But even when we grow beyond this default reaction, it is a tool that we cling to when we encounter consequences we really don’t like.

Paul responded to a similar reaction to the Old Testament Law in Romans 7:7 saying, What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet (HCSB). Some people in Paul’s experience, because of their own rebellious nature, responded to the Law with a desire to sin and then chose to blame the law for their choice. They tried to argue that their own choices weren’t the problem but that getting rid of the law would get rid of their sin. The mentality rested upon a foundation of “if there are no rules to break, we can’t be punished for breaking the rules.” They fundamentally misunderstood the nature of sin. So rather than dealing with themselves, they chose to blame the law.

We experience a lot of that in today’s society and people are falling away from Christ because of it. The “rules” of the Bible are more restrictive than some people are willing to deal with and so they begin to think that the “rules” are the problem. One person I know, addicted to pornography, decided that his addiction wasn’t the problem and so he tossed out the relationship with God that told him it was. Another, engaged in a sinful lifestyle, chose to keep calling himself a Christian but also decided to toss out as “flawed and barbaric” the scriptures which called his activities sinful.

Now, if you aren’t a Christian, feel perfectly free to toss out God and His Word. I don't expect you to live according to a system you haven't bought into. But if you are a believer, if you have experienced the movement of God in your life and are now doubting because that relationship creates tension with your behavior, don’t toss out the God you have known and experienced just because your actions don't measure up. Ask yourself, is it more likely that the God you have known and experienced never really existed or that you are trying to blame anything but yourself for what you know to be wrong?

If you want to continue doing things you know to be wrong, have the guts to be honest about it. Don’t suddenly pretend God doesn’t exist or decide the scriptures which guided you to Christ must now be outdated and barbaric. Don’t blame anyone or anything else because you want to make your own choices.

Getting a Wife-Mandated Mistress

Suggested Reading: Genesis 16:1-16

One of my favorite authors, Stephen Lawhead, often puts a disclaimer at the beginning of his books when the subject matter required him to consult others to make his details realistic. In this disclaimer he thanks those who have helped him with his research and then adds a note that any place the details might not add up the way they should is entirely his own fault. He gives credit for the help he had received but takes credit for the mistakes up front, not that I ever have or would have noticed any mistakes.

At the opposite end of that spectrum are Sarai and Abram. As they grew older, with Abram in his 80s and Sarai in her 70s, they still had not had any children. So Sarai convinced Abram to have a child with her servant Hagar so that she could count the servant's child as her own. Abram might have refused but the practice was fairly common at the time among couples who couldn't have children so Abram went along with it. When Hagar got pregnant she began looking at Sarai with contempt, possibly believing she could now replace her mistress (one of the common problems with this plan). So Sarai approached Abram, scolding him, “This is all your fault! I put my servant into your arms, but now that she’s pregnant she treats me with contempt. The Lord will show who’s wrong—you or me!” (Genesis 16:5, NLT).  Sarai, emotional and insecure as she was, came storming in, blaming Abram that her own plan had worked. She had come up with an idea, persuaded Abram to go along with it, and then got bent out of  shape at the predictable consequences when it did work. Isn't that just like us, sometimes?

How often do we come up with a plan or take action without quite thinking it through all the way and then get angry when the natural consequences of that plan come to pass? Worse yet, how often are we unwilling or unable to accept the blame for our own actions and try to pin the blame on someone else? We forget to make an appointment but it's the repair shop's fault they can't get us in. We wait to leave until the last possible minute but it's traffic's fault that we are late. We tell a spouse to set out hamburger meat, but it's their fault they didn't know we meant chicken breasts. We talk about someone behind their back but it's their fault they're being overly sensitive.

One of the least endearing qualities in any human being is the inability to take credit for mistakes or for the consequences of our own choices. When we mess up, let's have the courage to own up to our mistakes because Sarai was right about one thing:  The Lord will show who's wrong. 

A He-Man Like Depression

Suggested Reading: Job 6:1-13

When I was five, I experienced my first TV cliffhanger. He-Man had battled one of the weekly bad guys and knocked over a tower to do it. Unbeknownst to anyone, He-Man's nemesis, Skeletor, had disguised one of his evil minions (one who literally didn't have a heart) and placed him where He-Man would think the tower fell on him. When He-Man checked his heartbeat and discovered there wasn't one, he blamed himself for killing the man and fell into depression. He turned back into the ordinary Prince Adam and then chunked his magic sword into a bottomless pit so that he could never again become He-Man and abuse his power. Then the show cut to commercials. I was a devastated five year old. He-Man hadn't done anything wrong! How could he fall for the enemy's trick?! The hero can't get depressed and feel sorry for himself!

But He-Man isn't the only good man to ever get depressed. Job was also a very good man who had done nothing wrong and yet became very depressed. Job finally proclaimed in his depression, “Oh, that I might have my request, that God would grant my desire. I wish he would crush me. I wish he would reach out his hand and kill me. At least I can take comfort in this: Despite the pain, I have not denied the words of the Holy One. But I don’t have the strength to endure. I have nothing to live for" (Job 6:8-11, NLT).  Job did not know that God was holding him up as an example of righteousness rather than being angry with Job. All Job knew was that his life had suddenly become very difficult and very painful very quickly and he wasn't sure how he could move on.

Far more commonly than we would ever care to admit, we will encounter people who are depressed, sometimes even ourselves. A depressed person has not necessarily done anything wrong, anymore than He-Man or Job did anything wrong. Sometimes, it just means that they are missing some key details. Sometimes it means life is painful beyond their control, that life is hard and there doesn't seem to be anything to be done about it.

The next time you encounter someone who is depressed, whether it is a friend, a family member, a co-worker or yourself, cut them some slack, pray for them, bear with them, listen to them, and be patient. Even the best people can face depression.