August 20, 2012 - It's the Blame Game!

Proverbs 19: ³ The foolishness of a man twists his way,

And his heart frets against the Lord.

I daily read through the Proverbs chapter of the day… (i.e. today Proverbs 20.) Therefore I spend a lot of my writing time for these devotions quoting the Proverbs. Yet every once in a while I find myself looking at a verse I have read many times and asking myself, “What in the world does that mean?” It is so easy just to breeze past things.

The answer to it is most often found by reading context and/or reading other versions that maybe use different terms to get the point across. I really enjoy the blatant, in-your-face honesty of The Message paraphrase.

In it the previous verse reads as follows: People ruin their lives by their own stupidity, so why does God always get blamed?

In other words – often times our problems are of our own making (not always but often.) And what do we do, we look to blame either God or others.

In the sports world it is the classic “blame the coach or the ref when the players are doing poorly – say the other team is cheeting – etc.” (Just watch the news for the firings that will be taking place with Major League Baseball managers because their pitchers are throwing poorly or their other guys aren’t  getting the stick on the ball…)

I am so tired of this blame-everyone-else world! When will we start taking personal responsibility? When will we stop making foolish choices and instead pay attention to what God has to say?

In Psalm 119 it talks in every verse about the importance of God’s Word in our lives. As I shared with our group of guys at the recreation center this past week I pointed out this chapter to them to encourage them to seek God for direction. As I planned my time with them I pulled up the chapter on my IPhone and found the following simple truth in The Message:

Psalm 119: ⁹ How can a young person live a clean life? 
By carefully reading the map of your Word.

Seek God and stop the Blame Game!