In one of my psych classes today we confronted the issue of our human tendency not to accept blame even in the face of our failures. Noble Adam was quick to blame both God and Eve for his failure. “The woman, you gave me, she made me do it.” Last evening our phone rang at 11:30 pm. It was someone from our college who had dialed our number instead of the number he wanted. The number he wanted was one line below our number on his card. Upon realizing he had the wrong person he immediately blamed the person who printed the card by saying they had the numbers inverted. They did not. The error was his but being human he immediately blamed someone else. He never did apologize for calling at that hour. Aren’t people wonderful? Aren’t you happy to be one?
Actually I am happy to be a human. Not only are we the top of the food chain but we are amazing creatures, who for no cause of our own, are loved by our Creator. When He finished making us He said, “That’s very good.” What is astonishing about Him is not only doesn’t He blame others for His mistakes (He doesn’t make any.) He accepts responsibilities for ours. Notice I didn’t say He accepted the blame for our sins. What I did say is He accepted the responsibility for our sins. There is a huge difference. He can’t be blamed other than that He gave us free choice. It is how we use that free choice that was and is the problem.
But He did accept responsibility. He did it on the cross. He paid for our sins and by grace we get a brand new start every day until we no longer need one.
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 19, 2010
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org