It’s Not My Fault

Dear Daughters,

I remember the first time I led worship last year at Westwood Church.  I had just finished welcoming the people and launched into the beginning song which was energetic, loud, and fast.  When the worship team started (3 guitars, drums, bongos, 2 singers and me on the piano) I suddenly heard a minor chord and immediately thought “OK which of those guitars are playing the wrong chord?”  Then, to my horror, I looked down at my hands and saw that it was me!  In my nervousness I had placed my hands in the wrong position and was playing an A minor chord instead of a G major.  I quickly moved into the right position, and perhaps nobody heard, but I was astounded and saddened at my eagerness to blame someone else for my mistake.

In Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer entitles Wilderness Mentality #6:

It’s Somebody Else’s Fault.

How quick we all are to pin the blame on someone else and,  of course, it’s nothing new.  Starting in the Garden of Eden the serpent tempted Eve and both she and Adam disobeyed.  When God came around and found them hiding in the bushes from their shame He asked them for the story.  Immediately Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent, and now we all continue in that sad tradition.  It is a rare person who is willing to say, I made a mistake, it was my fault, and I take full responsibility.

In the desert the Israelites complained that all of their problems were the fault of Moses and God.  It was easier to blame Moses for their inconveniences than try to be grateful that God fed them every day, never allowed their shoes to wear out, led them with a cloud both day and night, provided water from a rock – to name just a few ways of how God cared for them.

Another interesting story from the Bible: When Sarah and Abraham had tired of waiting many years for the child God had promised them, they decided to take charge of the situation themselves.  Trying to help God out a little Sarah suggested that Abraham sleep with her maid.  Abraham complied and Hagar, the servant girl, conceived.  Later, of course, Hagar starting boasting and bragging about her pregnancy because Sarah was still barren, so there was strife in the household.  And what did Sarah do?  She blamed Abraham for sleeping with Hagar and producing a child, even though it was her idea in the first place.  Humanity has really not changed much over the millennium.

For several decades of our marriage, I’m sad to say, I was the Queen of Blame.   I didn’t always say it out loud, but often in my head I would think “If Dad wouldn’t have done that, this wouldn’t have happened.”  In fact Dad has said recently that the hardest time in our marriage was when I blamed him for the lifestyle that some of you lived for a time.  I remember thinking (much to my embarrassment and shame all these years later) that I was such a wonderful mother, and that if he were as good a father as I was a mother, our daughters would be so much better.  Lord have mercy!  Such arrogance, pride, and all that other stuff that God hates.

Somehow in my deluded way of thinking, I thought I was speaking facts when blaming Dad for circumstances in our family.  Oh how deceived I was until by God’s grace He opened my eyes and I saw how I was most certainly a variable in the equation of problems in our family.  Not that I never accused him again, but I understood that my judgmental attitude was doing nothing but dividing, and certainly not conquering the circumstances.

You remember whenever traveling by airplane there is always the speech about the oxygen mask, “Put on your own mask first, and then assist others around you.”  It reminds me of the blame game.  We cannot help anyone unless we are first honest, forgiven, and open to God’s work in our own lives.  We need to let Him change us before we can ever be of help to another person.

So…. I am learning to train my mind and my mouth to take responsibility for when I fail.  I have learned to say, “I was wrong.”  Taking responsibility for our actions takes courage, but it also takes the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to face the truth about ourselves.  When we blame others for our attitudes and actions we are not able to see the truth about ourselves.  It truly takes an act of God to open our eyes, but if you ask He will certainly make it known to you.  It’s a bit scary, and it will be painful but oh so freeing.

It’s so easy to blame our moods on other people.  But I love a quote from Joyce:

People can take a lot of things away from you, but no one can take away your good attitude.

If we ask God to show us where we are in error, he certainly will.  It is not easy to see ourselves for who we truly are, but as Jesus said

You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Love, Mom

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the light.

3 John 4