Passing Blame

 I was blown away a few days ago by my daughter, "little A". Actually I am consistently blown away by her and how brilliant she is. God has truly blessed her with an easy personality and a desire to learn.  She is just over 20 months old now and talks up a storm.

Anyway, I have to be careful because I could talk about her all day if I get started.  The other day my parents were in town visiting. Little A is in completely infatuated with my dad. She adores him and always has, even as an infant she would just sit and stare and laugh at him and they have had a special bond. He fully returns the affections and is always on the floor playing with her, signing with her (they both use sign language, but more on that another day) and singing silly songs with her.

One of the things Little A started to do while my dad was around was to blame him. She would blame anything and everything on him. The most used one was that any flatulence from her, her little brother, or anyone else, was grandpa's fault.

We all thought it was hilarious that this little one and a half year old would go around blaming farts on grandpa. She would even do it when he wasn't in the room, and it continued even after they went back home.

It took me a while to actually get past the hilarity of what she was doing and try to point out to her one year old self that its not okay to lie and pass blame.  Not surprising that she doesn't understand it but I hope and pray that someday she will.

The other day God pointed out to me how I do this often, how we all do this. We all pass blame. Without even noticing that we do it we try to shirk responsibility for our actions and pass it onto someone else.

I know that in arguments I have often tried to pass the blame or even tried to take a smaller portion of it.
I recently tried to stop in the middle of an argument and actually focus on what I did to make things the way they were. To stop blaming my husband for it and accept the responsibility.

We are all sinners. We all make mistakes.
Romans 3:23
 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

I shouldn't be surprised at all that a child already has the knowledge to pass blame, we are all sinners and like sinners we hide from our mistakes and try to pass the blame.

Genesis 3:8-14
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "where are you?"
He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
And God said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
The man said, " The woman you put here with me- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."
Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"
The woman said, " The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

But once we are made aware of our "shirkiness" how do we move away from it and towards living a more Godly, responsible for our actions kind of life?

Like I said earlier, I have been trying to live out an attitude of responsibility.  Taking the responsibility for what I have or haven't done and allowing others to do the same. We cannot force them to take responsibility but when we take our fair share of the blame and don't try to push it onto them,  people are more open to accepting their own responsibilities.

It is only through prayer that our sinful, blamepassing natures will be changed into a more Godlike attitude of responsibility.

That is my prayer for myself and for you. May God bless you as you try to walk it out.