Today we’re going to play the “Blame-Game.” Let’s say you’re a dude and you try a stunt that requires you to swallow razor blades. You end up in the hospital for emergency care and a huge bill. You take responsibility right? Wrong! You sue the hospital for subjecting you to harmful radiation during x-rays. Next question: You order hot coffee from a fast food drive-up. You spill it as you balance it on your lap. You take responsibility right? Wrong again!! You sue the fast food place and win $2.7 million in punitive damages – $5 million in today’s currency. Wow – it seems this blame game has a huge pay off, right? No – wrong yet again!!
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
