Blame.

Today, our youngest child turned 17. At her birthday breakfast, she opened the card given to her by her brother (but not before he popped her in the head with it!!). When she opened up the card, some critters popped out from the middle with 3D words declaring, “I’M TELLING! I’M TELLING!” We chuckled about the card selection and our son said he selected it because those were his sister’s favorite words early in life. Maybe it actually was telling the truth. Maybe it was actually tattling. Maybe…..just maybe….it was blaming.

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary,, blame means “to place responsibility for.” There is no doubt that everyone reading this blog has been blamed for something that WASN’T your responsibility. It’s also a certainty that everyone reading this blog has blamed someone else for something that WAS your responsibility. Blame was actually one of the first relational issues we read about in the book of Genesis.

In Genesis 2, there was God, there was the Garden, and there was Adam. There was purity. There was open communication and unhindered relationship. The Lord had a little conversation with Adam about all the Garden had to offer…..but gave him a clear directive that there was one tree (only ONE!) that he was not given freedom to eat of its fruit. No one else was there – the conversation was had with Adam alone. Realizing that he needed companionship, the Lord made Adam fall asleep and from him created Eve. All was good. Still open communication and unhindered relationship. Genesis 2:25 even says they were “naked and unashamed.” What an amazing place to be – ain’t no shame in their game! Yet.

We move on to Genesis 3 and the drama begins. We do not see in Scripture that the Lord speaks directly to Eve about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so we have to assume (dangerous, I know) that the information she received was through Adam. The serpent approaches her when she’s alone (he does his best work in isolation – stay connected!) and questions what God really said. It all goes downhill from here. She adds a little bit to the Truth, she gets enamored by what she sees, and she eats “the forbidden fruit.” Being generous, she even gave some to her husband!

Innocence is now gone.

Shame has now arrived.

And blame makes its way into the game.

Adam blamed “the woman You gave to me.” Eve blamed the serpent. And the rest of the story – including yours and mine – changed forever (I do understand that it was the eating from the tree that led to their removal from the Garden). Definitely doesn’t seem like the blame game was successful then – and it certainly isn’t successful now. So, what do we do?

One word can shatter the bondage of blame: OWNERSHIP. Merriam-Webster defines OWN as “to acknowledge to be true, valid, or as claimed : admit.” Can you imagine rewriting chapter 3 of Genesis from this perspective? The fruit had been eaten and the Lord inquired of Adam as to why they were hiding. What if his response – instead of blame – had been “I’m so sorry I left Eve alone. I didn’t protect her. I didn’t communicate well.” And what if Eve answered, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t listen well enough to understand what this meant. I followed the leading of my eyes and went for what I wanted instead of what You wanted.”

Dang!!! Ownership is powerful. Blaming is weak. But blaming is easier…..it requires less of us….and that is why it is so easy to do. To borrow the words of novelist Sarah Dessen, “Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that’s what makes you strong.”

In a world that appears to become more and more fractured every day – our “game” plan has got to change. We will never win when our strategy is the blame “game.” We will continue to walk in the ruts of irresponsibility as long as that is our mode of operation. Think back one last time to Genesis 3. Could the entire narrative of humanity been different had shame not introduced us to blame?