Blame shifting

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. – Genesis 3.12-13

Being a teacher, a youth worker, a parent, and a grandparent I have had plenty of chances to try and figure out the truth when somebody has done something. Finding the guilty party is not easy because normally no body wants to accept the blame because nobody wants to suffer the consequences.

Be assured this is nothing new. It has been going on since the very first sin. It went something like this:

God: Adam, why did you disobey me and eat the fruit?
Adam: The woman YOU gave me made me eat it. (See the double blame shift there?)
God: Eve, why did you disobey me?
Eve: The devil made me do it!

And that blame shifting goes on and on and on. It never stopped. It carries on today. We are no better than Adam and Eve.

We have plenty of things to blame our sin on:

It’s our society
It’s our culture
It’s television
It’s the internet
It’s the way women dress
It’s the way he looked at me
It’s the way I was raised

It’s always someone or something’s fault.

But that’s not the way it is.

When I sin there is one person to blame. I did it. I am guilty. It’s my fault. I chose to do wrong. The devil didn’t make me do it.

As long as we shift the blame we are never going to deal with the problem.

It's time to step up, admit our sin, confess and repent. Then we can move on.