We’re all pretty good at being blame-shifters. If you didn’t swallow the razor blades or spill hot coffee in your lap, you perhaps blamed the tobacco companies for giving people cancer. Or how about students blaming teachers for their bad grades? We can even blame the police officer for getting a speeding ticket. The list goes on and on!!

The “Blame-Game” started with Adam & Eve. God confronted them for eating from the tree of the knowledge of good & evil. The one tree they were forbidden to eat from. Anyway – they disobeyed and ate the fruit. But when confronted by God, Adam quickly pointed his finger at Eve. Then Eve turned around and blamed the serpent, and God was probably rolling his eyes by then at the whole dang scenario! The interesting thing here is that you don’t have to lie to play the blame-game. Adam & Eve both told the truth. What they didn’t do was take responsibility.

Playing the blame-game doesn’t make things better; it makes them worse. Life is not fair. The Bible tells us we will have tribulations in this world, so one of the best things we can teach our kids is how to take responsibility and handle adversity.

There’s an interesting article out called “13 Ways to Really Mess Up Your Children.” #4: “Always do what you can to keep your child from having to experience the consequences of their behavior. Pay their traffic tickets. Pay for overdue books. Pay their parking fines. Run interference for them. If their paper is late, insist that a teacher is unfair for picking on your child.”

You get the picture – teach your child to play the blame-game and when they are older they can go to a university like Harvard and blame the government for their stress & depression. Students across the nation last week were offered treats like ‘milk & cookies’, therapy goats & dogs, arts & crafts, as well as “Lego” toys to get their minds off the 2024 election results. Classes were cancelled and tests put off. Poor students.

As Emily Sturge noted: “Democratic elections are not traumatic, they are a privilege that not all countries allow. These [university] activities belong at a day care, not an institution of higher learning. Life is hard. Our great-grandparents fought through WWII with sacrifice and grit – not with coloring books or puppy petting.”

When King David sinned, he stepped up to the plate and confessed that he was wrong, without shifting blame. In I Chron 21 we read: “Then David said to God, ‘I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg You, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.’” No blame-game here!

There’s a great story I came across about the manager of a minor league baseball team who was so disgusted with his center-fielder’s performance that he ordered him to the dugout and assumed the position himself. The first ball that came into center- field took a bad hop and hit the manager in the mouth. The next one was a high ball, which he lost in the glare of the sun – until it bounced off his forehead. The third was a hard line drive that he charged with outstretched arms; unfortunately it flew between his hands and smacked his eye.

Furious, he ran back to the dugout, grabbed the center-fielder by the uniform, and shouted, “You idiot! You’ve got center-field so messed up that even I can’t do a thing with it.”

Blame is a dead-end street that doesn’t help anyone! As Don Simpson so rightly pointed out – “It’s not how you play the game, it’s how you place the blame!” Touche!

Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychurch.org

The post The Blame Game appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

   57 people were killed – among them was innkeeper Harry R. Truman. Truman rose to fame as a folk hero in the weeks leading up to the eruption after refusing to leave his home despite multiple evacuation orders. Truman was famous for his antics, once even getting a forest ranger drunk so he could burn a pile of brush. He poached, stole gravel from the forest service and fished on America Indian land with a fake game wardens badge.  

   Unfortunately, Truman showed little concern over the potential eruption. His comments were telling: “This area is heavily timbered, Spirit Lake is in-between me and the mountain, and the mountain is a mile away. The mountain ain’t gonna hurt me.” Famous last words! 

   State officials ordered an evacuation (again) of the area and attempted one final time to persuade Truman to leave his home – all to no avail. The next morning at 8:32 Mount  St. Helens blew -Truman and his 16 cats died of heat shock in less than a second – too quickly to even register pain. They were buried under 150 ft of volcanic debris. Poor Truman – he was warned. Friends tried to save him but he just wouldn’t listen. 

   Years ago, I had a book that I could never remember the title of. I just called it “The Bloody Hands Book.” Basically, it was about the dialogue God had with Ezekiel when he was called to be a “watchman” to his countrymen. Great responsibility is tied to this calling. Here’s what God told him: “When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.”

   This was the job of the watchman – one of constant vigil and warning. It was not a popular message then and certainly not a popular message now! But the church is not a religious social club – there are people outside the building who need God, and we can never forget that we are responsible for others. Our modern challenge is to take the time from other activities and do the call of a watchman. 

   The late great Reinhard Bonnke once remarked: “God always works with workers and moves with movers, but He does not sit with sitters!” Amen to that. About 2500 years ago the Greek Historian, Herodotus, gave our postmen their famous motto, adapted from the wars between the Greeks & Persians, whereby the Persians used a system of mounted couriers. “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail, shall keep the “postmen” from their appointed rounds.” I think that would make a terrific motto for us – as todays watchmen! 

   The Apostle Paul made a gripping comment in Acts 20, just before he was martyred.“I declare today that I have been faithful. If anyone suffers eternal death, I am innocent of the blood of all men.” He had stood his post as a watchman for his generation to the very end. This is the one and same man who also testified that he was called to “open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.” 

   George Whitefield (1714-1770) who, in his thirty-four years of ministry, preached eighteen thousand sermons and was heard by as many as ten million people said this: “God forbid that I should travel with anybody a quarter of an hour without speaking of Christ to them.” Now that is a watchman!  Selah!!

Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Church at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you may contact them at DPCitychurch.org

The post The Watchman  appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.