Thought for Saturday, April 27th

April 27, 2013

The Blame Game

   Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:  But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:  For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.  And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.  And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?  And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?  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 3:1-13

“There are many scapegoats for our blunders, but the most popular one is provvidence.”

-          Mark Twain

Whose fault was it anyway?

Was it Adam’s fault; because he was weak and gave into Eve for self serving reasons?

Was it Eve’s fault because she just happened to be at the wrong place, at the right time when the serpent came along to tempt her?

Or could we take a secular world view of the situation and say it was God’s fault because when He put them there He placed unreasonable restrictions on Adam and Eve and thus He set them up for failure?

It seems not much has changed in the many years that have passed, since the great fruit debacle of Eden: humanity, by in large, has continued to fine tune and develop the art of denial and blame transferring.  Even Cain when he killed Able tried to deny culpability by asking God, “Am I my brother’s keeper.”

Today we are no better.  We blame the music, the sermon, the deacons, the temperature, and anything we can to deflect the responsibility for our spiritual lives and choices away from us and onto someone else.

But the sum of the matter is simply this; “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” – The Bible (James 4:17)

Prayer:

Father, I am just a sinner saved by grace; who still fails; falters; and sins far more often than I should.  When I do, keep me honest, meek and humble: ready and willing to admit my fault and always repentant and desirous to do better.