What is everyone's favorite game? The Blame Game!
While it's exceedingly popular, it's also very dangerous. It keeps us from facing reality and from making things right.
How does it work?
When things go wrong, we feel guilt, shame, frustration & fear and as we get this rude awakening, we realize that we really are powerless. These unpleasant emotions give rise to a strong fight or flight response. But how can we fight? Feeling hopeless is terrible, so we make ourselves believe it was someone else's fault. We then focus our anger on them.
We can blame our parents ~ they didn't meet our needs or raise us right.
We can blame our friends ~ they aren't there enough for us.
We can blame our recovery process ~ it's not working.
We can blame satan ~ "the devil made me do it".
And then, when we've run out of others to blame, we turn on GOD. Why did HE allow this to happen to me?
As long as we're angry, we feel powerful. So, as long as we come up with all sorts of reasons that we're not at fault and that someone else is because they should have fulfilled their purpose better, we feel more competent than they. Seeing their guilt clearly lets us be superior in our own eyes. Feelings of power & superiority are very pleasant feelings.
The pleasure, however, is deceptive. It is built on a lie--the same lie that satan (the father of lies) used when he rebelled. He just kept on blaming GOD, and he tempts us to do so as well. If he can get us to abandon GOD instead of returning to HIM in repentance, we may drown out our painful emotions for a moment, but eventually we will be consumed with anger, bitterness & discontent, unable to face life as it is. We will carry an ever-increasing burden of unresolved emotions, further damage our strained relationships with others, strengthen our compulsions until they totally enslave us and lose all sense of GOD & HIS Love for us. That's part of the price we pay to play the blame game.
Don't take anyone else's inventory, their faults are theirs; concentrate on your own because you have enough of them. Find your own defects, then confess & make amends for them. Then walk the road to the Glorious Liberty of Freedom with the children of GOD, your brethren. Start today!
Dear Father in Heaven, forgive me for blaming others, especially YOU, for my failures. Help me to be honest--to search only within--that I may see reality clearly and find YOUR Forgiveness & Strength to change my life that I may become more & more like the person YOU Created me to be. I Pray to YOU in The Mighty & Precious Name of YOUR Son, YESHUA, JESUS The CHRIST. Amen.
Reading Psalm 37:9-29 this morning….
While it's exceedingly popular, it's also very dangerous. It keeps us from facing reality and from making things right.
How does it work?
When things go wrong, we feel guilt, shame, frustration & fear and as we get this rude awakening, we realize that we really are powerless. These unpleasant emotions give rise to a strong fight or flight response. But how can we fight? Feeling hopeless is terrible, so we make ourselves believe it was someone else's fault. We then focus our anger on them.
We can blame our parents ~ they didn't meet our needs or raise us right.
We can blame our friends ~ they aren't there enough for us.
We can blame our recovery process ~ it's not working.
We can blame satan ~ "the devil made me do it".
And then, when we've run out of others to blame, we turn on GOD. Why did HE allow this to happen to me?
As long as we're angry, we feel powerful. So, as long as we come up with all sorts of reasons that we're not at fault and that someone else is because they should have fulfilled their purpose better, we feel more competent than they. Seeing their guilt clearly lets us be superior in our own eyes. Feelings of power & superiority are very pleasant feelings.
The pleasure, however, is deceptive. It is built on a lie--the same lie that satan (the father of lies) used when he rebelled. He just kept on blaming GOD, and he tempts us to do so as well. If he can get us to abandon GOD instead of returning to HIM in repentance, we may drown out our painful emotions for a moment, but eventually we will be consumed with anger, bitterness & discontent, unable to face life as it is. We will carry an ever-increasing burden of unresolved emotions, further damage our strained relationships with others, strengthen our compulsions until they totally enslave us and lose all sense of GOD & HIS Love for us. That's part of the price we pay to play the blame game.
Don't take anyone else's inventory, their faults are theirs; concentrate on your own because you have enough of them. Find your own defects, then confess & make amends for them. Then walk the road to the Glorious Liberty of Freedom with the children of GOD, your brethren. Start today!
Dear Father in Heaven, forgive me for blaming others, especially YOU, for my failures. Help me to be honest--to search only within--that I may see reality clearly and find YOUR Forgiveness & Strength to change my life that I may become more & more like the person YOU Created me to be. I Pray to YOU in The Mighty & Precious Name of YOUR Son, YESHUA, JESUS The CHRIST. Amen.
Reading Psalm 37:9-29 this morning….