Blame- to assign responsibility, a fault or wrong
There he (Elijah) went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.
I Kings 19:9-11
It seems like 2020 is the year of the blame. How often are we blaming this year or the COVID Virus for things that have been canceled or have gone horribly wrong. Whether it is the loss of jobs, sickness, death rates on the rise, relational issues to our favorite events being canceled/postponed and or changed. Are we really blaming the virus or the year, on our political leaders for either not caring enough, or micromanaging to the point of being a dictator. I think there is a portion of all of us that blame God for allowing/creating the virus and then not healing those who have gotten sick and died. Someone or something has to be held accountable for the mess we are in and it can’t be me. This could be why we fight with our loved ones, kick the dog and turn to vices to escape which turns into addictions. In all reality its playing the victim card and God is somehow to blame. To paraphrase an NT Wright quote, from his book Evil & The Justice of God
“How often do we want to put God on trial for the evil in the world and to find Him guilty only to find out He has already served His sentence.”
The first observation about blame is that it is feeling based. There is nothing wrong with feelings and or emotions, but when they become more important than facts, this is when we have a problem. How often when we are angry, we say or do something that we end up saying something we regret to we care about. In essence, emotions can tend to take the moment to the extreme. I know when I am hungry, and I don’t have any groceries, I tend to go through the fast food drive through and my order can be quite large, which is not good for my waist line or my wallet. In essence, when we let our feelings take control, we become reactionary to what is happening to and around us. In essence we are losing control of being rational, level headed and making solid decisions goes out the window. When this happens, we should take a step back and breath. We have to look at the situation and find out what is fluff and what are the real issues that are going on and what are responsibilities are in the situation.
The second observation is that the victim cards gets played. How often are we like Elijah an proclaim that we are the only ones left. Not only has everyone else abandoned the cause, but they are out to get me. The phrase “why is everyone picking on me” comes into play. The victim card often plays into a self-righteousness attitude that is really dangerous. It comes across as I am the only one who is doing it right and has kept the faith. How this comes about is we justify our thoughts, words and actions along with demonizing what others have said, done, or thought. I think we elevate our intentions, actions and speech, by trying and making them Godly while hold other people to a completely different standard. In essence the blame game puts us an others in two different camps because we use two different standards. How often do we hold ourselves to a lower standard than other people or vice versa? The victim card often creates a dichotomy of two different standards that is just not healthy. The first standard is the one I meet and is relatively easy to meet and I am the only one who knows this standard. The other standard is the one we place on others which is usually impossible to meet, especially when we don’t tell them about it and we still hold them to it. We get bitter when they don’t meet it.
The third observation to the blame game is that truth becomes very subjective. When truth becomes subjective, we tend to divide ourselves into different camps and we point fingers. The easy example is the American political scene. As we are gearing up for the presidential election in seven weeks, people are gathering in their camps along with pointing fingers and calling each other nasty names. Why groups tend to rally around subjective truth is that it makes them feel good, proves their point (no matter how much the facts get skewed) and it turns into some sort of rally cry. Its aim is also to destroy the other group and sometimes it is done in not so nice ways. Whether it is a smear campaign or discrediting them with things that are not completely true or holy. It is often taking an element of truth and distorting it beyond recognition. One of the hot button topics of today is the movement to defund the police. Only so much money and law & order will help, the change that is needed in our communities. The real change starts with the nuclear family. This is where solid Biblical standards are taught and lived out on a daily basis. Just remember, what is being taught and lived out at home will be public policy in the next generation. So are we teaching things that are worth learning and being taught, not only now, but for generations to come and even for eternity?
The fourth idea of blame is accountability. Accountability is a good thing and we all need to be held accountable for our speech and actions. The one thing with the blame game is that we often become the judge, jury and even executioner. When we feel that either we or someone we care about has been wronged, someone needs to pay. God is an easy target, because if He is all powerful, He could of fixed it, or prevented it. When we become judge and jury, we essentially giving ourselves the authority to decide the other persons fate, which is often sticking the nails in the coffin. This often leads to vigilante justice, and we become so hell bent on being right that we often leave a path of destruction. Going back to that NT Wright quote from the beginning, when we find out that God has already paid the price through His suffering, death and resurrection, this means we have to look in the mirror. When we assign blame, we are assigning guilt, and more often then not, we have blood on our hands. This is an uncomfortable truth that we have to face and deal with. It is owning up to what we have done seeking forgiveness/restitution and changing our ways.
Here is my final to thoughts for this blog. The first one is, there are times where we need to get our head out of our ass. Toe put it more politely, we need to see the forest through the trees. Let’s go back to Elijah for a minute. After got his chest cleared, God reminded Elijah who He was and that Elijah was not only one left. There were others who did not bow down to Baal and who are still seeking Gods face. Just like Elijah, we needed to be reminded that its not all about me. The second thought is that there is a difference between blaming and discernment. Blaming looks to destroy and discernment looks to correct and build up.
Questions
What are those things we blame others or God for?
Does our blaming ever become vindictive or uses vigilante justice?
Do we ever distort truth to proof a point or to make us feel better?
