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.

Impressing Teenage Boys With My Girl Watching Skills

Suggested Reading: Proverbs 7:6-23

When I was in high school, our youth group went to Six Flags Over Texas for the day. When we were ready for lunch, I found myself standing in line with a couple of other teenage boys waiting to order. As we were slowly moving through the line, one of my friends suddenly muttered in a very excited voice, "Wow, she's hot!" The other guys in the line with me immediately turned to stare at the beautiful girl in line several feet behind us but I refused to turn. A couple of the guys urged me, "You've got to look at this girl! She's gorgeous!" I answered that I would but that I refused to turn and stare like a gawking bird and make a fool of myself. The guys described her to me and after a minute or so I twisted like I was stretching one way and then the other, getting a good look at the girl as I did. The other boys in line with me were impressed by the move and began practicing the move themselves as the day went on. I used to be real impressed with myself, too, until I realized that I didn't have a problem with staring just like everybody else. I just had a problem getting caught.

The author of Proverbs struck on the core of this human tendency in a scene where an adulterous woman attempted to seduce a young man walking past her house. The woman said, "Come, let’s drink deeply of lovemaking until morning. Let’s feast on each other’s love! My husband isn’t home; he went on a long journey. He took a bag of money with him and will come home at the time of the full moon” (Proverbs 7:18-20, HCSB). Notice, that the adulterous woman's main selling point is that her husband will be gone for a long time and they won't get caught.

While the author of the proverb was specifically warning about the dangers and temptations of adultery, the seduction method is something we experience in nearly all areas of life. The belief that we won't get caught, that no one will know, can be a strong motivator to do something we know is wrong but we really want to do anyway. Rarely do men look at pornography when their wives are sitting next to them but they watch it when they think they won't get caught. Employees skim a little off the slush fund at work because no one keeps up with exactly how much is in there and they will never get caught. Those little indiscretions on business trips happen because there is no one who will report back to our spouse that we were unfaithful. Or we run that stop sign because no one is around to see us or give us a ticket.

The knowledge that we won't get caught emboldens us to do what we want when, at any other time, we would resist temptation. Las Vegas's "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" motto is built on this foundation. But the definition of sin doesn't change because no one is watching. It's still called cheating even when you don't get caught, and you're still staring, even if no one can tell that you are. Rather than pushing the line and getting away with what we can, we ought to be even more careful with our integrity when no one is watching.

God has called us to live lives of holiness. Are we living with integrity or just trying not to get caught?

Taking a Beating Like a Klingon

Suggested Reading: Isaiah 1:2-9

There is an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where Worf (the Klingon transfer from the Next Generation) is captured by the enemy and is forced into a gladiator style prison tournament. Over the course of the episode Worf fights and wins match after match until he is tired and worn out and then has to fight the enemy's best soldier. Having already been the subject of so much abuse, Worf can barely manage to get back on his feet time after time, but somehow he continues to pull himself up. Because Worf feels he is in the right, he refuses to give up, no matter how many beatings he has to take, no matter how bloodied and bruised he gets.

When Worf continues to stand up time and time again even though it means he will take more abuse, it is considered an honorable thing because Worf refuses to let the enemy win. But what if a person endured such abuse simply because they refused to admit that they were wrong? That kind of stubbornness isn't quite so admirable. In Isaiah chapter 1, God is discussing the discipline that had been poured out on his people because they stubbornly refuse to give up their sinful ways. God asks, “Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness – only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil" (Isaiah 1:5-6, HCSB).

Far too often, we endure suffering, which is either a direct consequence of our own sinful behavior or is the discipline of a God who is desperately trying to turn us around before we destroy ourselves, and we stubbornly refuse to give in, continuing to engage in our sinful, harmful activity. Too often we decide that regardless of the consequences we are going to continue doing what we want to do, no matter how wrong it is or how much we suffer as a result. But while suffering for a just cause can be admirable, suffering because we just don't want to change is destructive and stupid.

What about you? What are you stubbornly refusing to give up, even though you are facing increasingly difficult consequences for it? What are you considering doing, even though you know the consequences could be dire? What are you trying to convince yourself that you can get away with, knowing you probably won't? Imagine yourself facing the full set of consequences for that decision and choose right now to do the right thing.

Suffering for a just cause is admirable. Suffering because we refuse to give up our sin is just sad.

When God Pulls An Intervention

Suggested Reading: Proverbs 19:11-19

From time to time, my wife enjoys watching a show called Intervention. Nearly every episode shows some person or another dealing with drug addictions. This person has typically been supported by one family member or another through bad decision after bad decision because that family member cannot bear to see their loved one live on the street or go hungry. As a result, these addicts never suffer the consequences for their actions. Not until the family members promise to cut the addict off, forcing the addict to go into recovery, does anything change. Only after facing the consequences for their bad choices does the addict begin to get some things straight.

The author of Proverbs discussed this dynamic in Proverbs 19:19 when he said, Hot- tempered people must pay the penalty. If you rescue them once, you will have to do it again (NLT). The author was talking about the need to let people suffer the consequences for losing their temper but the principle often applies to a variety of areas in life. Very often we, as stubborn and prideful people, refuse to learn our lessons until we face consequences for our bad decisions. Sometimes parents wrestle with this principle when raising their kids, afraid to let their kids struggle. But sometimes God has to apply this lesson with us.

Very often we pray for God to deliver us from terrible circumstances without acknowledging that our own bad decisions led to those terrible circumstances,  and without learning our lesson. We pray for God's mercy on us without realizing that the greater mercy is allowing us to suffer the consequences for our choices so that we learn our lesson rather than saving us and having to rescue us again later.  Sometimes, we would be better served praying that God would demonstrate to us where we made our mistakes than praying that God would deliver us.

Sometimes tragedy is just tragedy and hardship is simply circumstance. But sometimes we have caused our own problems and we will never learn our lessons until we have to face the mess we have created. If you are dealing with a disaster of your own making right now, pray that God will enable you to learn your lesson. In the long term, that is more merciful than saving you from your own mistakes

Changing the Future with a Deep Breath

Suggested Reading: Daniel 6:1-16 (or read the whole story here)

If you aren't familiar with Doctor Who, you aren't aware that the British television series features an alien called The Doctor, who travels through space and time solving problems and saving people from monsters. Often in the show, some nefarious alien species has altered time for their own benefit and the Doctor has to restore the timeline to save everyone. Every now and then, though, he encounters a fixed point in time, something that cannot be changed no matter how hard you try or how much time travel you do. Occasionally, even in the time travel realm of science fiction, some decisions can never be changed. They are permanent. Final.

In Daniel 6, Daniel found himself in a land where the king's law could never be changed. According to the laws of the Medes and Persians, any law the king made was a permanent law, without exceptions and without equivocation. So when some of Daniel's co-workers wanted to get rid of Daniel out of jealousy, they convinced the king to sign a law making it illegal to pray to anyone but the king for 30 days. Then they set the penalty for praying as being thrown into a den of lions. Once it was signed, they went and caught Daniel praying to God as they had predicted he would, and then ran to the king. The king hadn't considered this possibility and looked for a way to save Daniel from the law he had foolishly signed. But in the evening the men went together to the king and said, “Your Majesty, you know that according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, no law that the king signs can be changed.” So at last the king gave orders for Daniel to be arrested and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to him, “May your God, whom you serve so faithfully, rescue you" (Daniel 6:15-16, NLT).

The king had made a permanent decision without thinking through the consequences. I guess that makes him just like us sometimes. We burn bridges without thinking about whether or not we will need them in the future. We cross lines of innocence and purity that can never be uncrossed. We make decisions about relationships based on surface level emotions. We make life-altering decisions that can never be undone just because it feels like the right thing to do in a single moment or because someone flatters us and our good judgment goes flying out the window.

Sometimes, we face decisions that don't have significant consequences. But frequently we make decisions that will have a lasting impact we have no way of foreseeing. When we face decisions, we must take a step back and think through the consequences. Maybe you can live with that decision now. But will you be able to live with that decision when you can't reverse it? Will you still be comfortable with that decision ten years down the road? Or sixty?

Before you make a life-long decision, take a deep breath and work through the possible consequences. That deep breath might be the only thing that stands between you and a lifetime of regret.

Forgiveness and Consequences from Alien Fathers

Suggested Reading: Exodus 34:1-9

In the third season of the Superman prequel series Smallville, Clark Kent deals with the fallout from a really bad decision. Trying to escape the influence of Jor-El, his biological father, Clark destroyed the spaceship that brought him to Earth and housed a copy of Jor-El's consciousness. The ensuing explosion sent shock waves for miles, destroying the Kent's storm cellar and rolling the truck in which Clark's adoptive parents, Jonathan and Martha, were driving. The accident caused Martha to lose her unborn child, a miracle pregnancy. For months Clark dealt with guilt from the accident before Martha told him, "Clark, we never blamed you." But even being reconciled with his parents and experiencing their forgiveness, the entire family continued to deal with the loss of the unborn baby's life.

Scripture reminds us that this combination of forgiveness and consequences is something that we should expect. In Exodus 34:6-7, the Lord described Himself this way: "Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected – even children in the third and fourth generations" (NLT).

Often times, when first reading this passage, people will exclaim, "How is it fair that God punishes children and grandchildren for their parents' sin?" and we shouldn't gloss over that question. We should, however, read that verse in light of the one before it where God declares that he forgives "iniquity, rebellion, and sin." Who is it that needs their iniquity, rebellion, and sin forgiven? The guilty – the ones whose sin is being laid upon their children and grandchildren. Both are happening simultaneously. Forgiveness and consequences both come, simultaneously, from the hand of God.

To often, we make the mistake of assuming that forgiveness automatically wipes out the consequences of our sin, but that could not be farther from the truth. Yes, sometimes, God in God's mercy lessens the severity of those consequences but many times God does not. Often, God's forgiveness runs parallel to the consequences we experience for our sin. Just as a parent forgives their child for disobedience but will still discipline that child in order to teach them right from wrong, God cares too much about us to not let us experience at least some of the natural consequences of our sin to ensure that we learn.

If you are struggling with the idea that you have been forgiven because you are still experiencing the consequences of your sin, remember that forgiveness and earthly consequences often go together. The fact that we are experiencing consequences for our sin does not mean that God has not forgiven us. And the fact that we have received God's forgiveness does not mean that we are immune to the either the natural consequences of our actions or their effects on the people around us. God, in God's wisdom and power, can help us navigate those effects and begin to make the situation right, and we should seek God as we attempt to do so. But we must never assume that forgiveness and consequences do not go hand in hand.

God loves us too much not to forgive us when we seek God and too much not to let us learn from our failures.