About 6 weeks ago, I started to take supper to my shut-ins a few times a week. Sometimes, the kids like to accompany me to get out of being "shut-in" themselves. (This winter weather is driving us all to the brink of madness.) Yesterday, as Levi and I were driving to drop off a meal to my "sick people" as Levi calls them, the front passenger tire of our van got pulled into one of the many ruts on our soft, country road. It pulled the whole van to the right, and Levi was uneasy about it. He said, "Mom, you're driving crazy."
I said, "Sorry, buddy, but the road is kind of soft." He replied, "It's okay. It's probably just the van's fault."
I guess you know you're blood-relatives when a person is willing to blame an inanimate object for you.
As a divorced person married to a divorced person, my life has been filled with a veritable plethora of awkward circumstances. From hosting my husband's ex-wife in our last home and in our current home, to inadvertently washing her underwear... yes, I said, "washing her underwear", to coping with children's programs with my ex-husband and his wife, to hosting my ex-husband's wife's parents at our home last week and introducing them to my other children as Sadie's and Claire's "grandma and grandpa". I say that I cope with all these things, only because my husband doesn't seem to mind a whole lot of these inconvenient goings on. That is to say, until his ex-wife's last visit ended in her walking unannounced into our bedroom and seeing him sitting on my adorable, white, cushioned, Victorian, vanity bench lifting my 5 pound dumbbells. I missed it, and when I say, "I missed it," I mean I really would have liked to have witnessed that. I'm sure it was precious.
Not to diminish Mark's hospitality in bizarre situations... He is way better than I am. He doesn't get annoyed, flustered, or exasperated like I do. It's moments like these when I feel sorry for myself and find myself wanting someone to blame for my circumstances. Isn't it someone else's fault that I have to continue to graciously endure the people who have been the cause of much of the pain in our lives? I mean, we obviously have a choice as to whether or not to let these people invite themselves into our home. It's probably not even good "boundary setting" to let them into our family home. We certainly don't allow it for their sakes. We do it for our children - who are much better at unconditional love than we could ever be, and what's important to them is important to us.
Blame shifting comes naturally to humans. Shifting responsibility to another person (or even an animal or inanimate object) seems like second nature when we face consequences that are even just the least bit unpleasant. And why not? We've been doing it since Genesis 3:11.
"Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
12The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."
13Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
I don't know about you, but I see three shifts of blame in Genesis 3:11-13. The first two are from Adam to "the woman You gave to be with me." In other words, it was God's fault for giving Adam "this woman," and/or Eve's fault for giving him the fruit. The third blame shift is in verse 13 when Eve says, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Adam and Eve covered the aggregate of human propensity to blame. First, it was another person's fault - Eve's. Then very quickly, in the same sentence even, it was God's fault. Third, it was the serpent or devil's fault. She made me do it. God made me do it. The devil made me do it. The people He had created for fellowship - companionship even - abandoned Him: left Him alone, holding the bag (blame).
God saw our very first sin - not trusting that He had our best interest at heart and thereafter choosing a way we thought was better. Even worse, we were not willing to even acknowledge what we had done to Him. To our amazement, His redemption of us flies in the face of the justice we deserved. By glorious contrast to our blame-shifting human nature, Jesus came for the sole purpose of taking our blame on Himself and not just our blame, but our punishment for that blame. Isaiah 53:3-5 tells of this work:
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
We hid... our faces from Him in the Garden of Eden. We abandoned Him in our selfish desires. Matthew 26:40-45 details the disciples falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus died. He asked them to stay awake and pray. He was experiencing those very human emotions of sorrow and fear, but they were tired. Matthew 26:55b says simply, "Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled." Again in Matthew 26:69-74, Peter denied even knowing Jesus - not once, but three times. At a time when Jesus was counting on their companionship, humanity again left Him alone - holding the bag. We hid... our faces from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Not only did we not recognize His heart beating for (toward) us, we didn't care... even when it stopped beating for (in order to save) us.
How many times are our eyes to heavy to companion our Lord? How often are our feet too quick to abandon Him in front of others? Why do we still hide our faces from Him? Jesus died to purchase the right for us to look God in His glorious face again. He bought back the opportunity for us to be His companions. It was so costly. He took my blame so that I don't have to shift blame - not to favorite television shows, nor to sleepy eyes, nor to busy days. The ultimate irony is a thing of beauty.
I said, "Sorry, buddy, but the road is kind of soft." He replied, "It's okay. It's probably just the van's fault."
I guess you know you're blood-relatives when a person is willing to blame an inanimate object for you.
As a divorced person married to a divorced person, my life has been filled with a veritable plethora of awkward circumstances. From hosting my husband's ex-wife in our last home and in our current home, to inadvertently washing her underwear... yes, I said, "washing her underwear", to coping with children's programs with my ex-husband and his wife, to hosting my ex-husband's wife's parents at our home last week and introducing them to my other children as Sadie's and Claire's "grandma and grandpa". I say that I cope with all these things, only because my husband doesn't seem to mind a whole lot of these inconvenient goings on. That is to say, until his ex-wife's last visit ended in her walking unannounced into our bedroom and seeing him sitting on my adorable, white, cushioned, Victorian, vanity bench lifting my 5 pound dumbbells. I missed it, and when I say, "I missed it," I mean I really would have liked to have witnessed that. I'm sure it was precious.
Not to diminish Mark's hospitality in bizarre situations... He is way better than I am. He doesn't get annoyed, flustered, or exasperated like I do. It's moments like these when I feel sorry for myself and find myself wanting someone to blame for my circumstances. Isn't it someone else's fault that I have to continue to graciously endure the people who have been the cause of much of the pain in our lives? I mean, we obviously have a choice as to whether or not to let these people invite themselves into our home. It's probably not even good "boundary setting" to let them into our family home. We certainly don't allow it for their sakes. We do it for our children - who are much better at unconditional love than we could ever be, and what's important to them is important to us.
Blame shifting comes naturally to humans. Shifting responsibility to another person (or even an animal or inanimate object) seems like second nature when we face consequences that are even just the least bit unpleasant. And why not? We've been doing it since Genesis 3:11.
"Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"
12The man said, "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."
13Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."
I don't know about you, but I see three shifts of blame in Genesis 3:11-13. The first two are from Adam to "the woman You gave to be with me." In other words, it was God's fault for giving Adam "this woman," and/or Eve's fault for giving him the fruit. The third blame shift is in verse 13 when Eve says, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Adam and Eve covered the aggregate of human propensity to blame. First, it was another person's fault - Eve's. Then very quickly, in the same sentence even, it was God's fault. Third, it was the serpent or devil's fault. She made me do it. God made me do it. The devil made me do it. The people He had created for fellowship - companionship even - abandoned Him: left Him alone, holding the bag (blame).
God saw our very first sin - not trusting that He had our best interest at heart and thereafter choosing a way we thought was better. Even worse, we were not willing to even acknowledge what we had done to Him. To our amazement, His redemption of us flies in the face of the justice we deserved. By glorious contrast to our blame-shifting human nature, Jesus came for the sole purpose of taking our blame on Himself and not just our blame, but our punishment for that blame. Isaiah 53:3-5 tells of this work:
3 He was despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
We hid... our faces from Him in the Garden of Eden. We abandoned Him in our selfish desires. Matthew 26:40-45 details the disciples falling asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane before Jesus died. He asked them to stay awake and pray. He was experiencing those very human emotions of sorrow and fear, but they were tired. Matthew 26:55b says simply, "Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled." Again in Matthew 26:69-74, Peter denied even knowing Jesus - not once, but three times. At a time when Jesus was counting on their companionship, humanity again left Him alone - holding the bag. We hid... our faces from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Not only did we not recognize His heart beating for (toward) us, we didn't care... even when it stopped beating for (in order to save) us.
How many times are our eyes to heavy to companion our Lord? How often are our feet too quick to abandon Him in front of others? Why do we still hide our faces from Him? Jesus died to purchase the right for us to look God in His glorious face again. He bought back the opportunity for us to be His companions. It was so costly. He took my blame so that I don't have to shift blame - not to favorite television shows, nor to sleepy eyes, nor to busy days. The ultimate irony is a thing of beauty.
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