Excuses, excuses (excuses)

Why do we blame others when we fall short of the glory of God? Do we think that everyone thinks we're perfect and we may lower their expectations of us?

For my part, everyone knows I'm a bonehead. And everyone knows I'm a sinner. And yet I continually try to shift the blame when my obvious failures rise to the surface and become noticeable.

Genesis 2:12–13 reads: "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.

It goes all the way back to the beginning. Adam was the expert blameshifter—he blamed Eve and, as he was talking, he saw the opportunity to shift blame again so he jumped on it immediately and proceeded to blame God. "The woman did it, God. Oh and, by the way, you're the One who gave the woman to me, so it's really your fault."

Then Eve followed her husbands sinful lead and said, "The devil made me do it."

Which of these blame-shifting techniques worked best? Well—they both ended up wandering the world outside the garden. They both received the penalty of death. So obviously none of the techniques worked. Blaming others, blaming God, and blaming Satan. They all were inexcusable.

God calls us to repent. Repentance demands knowledge of our sin. We cannot repent when we don't know that we're doing anything wrong. I believe blame shifting is motivated not by our desire to hide our sins from others—they already know we're sinful. I think blame shifting is motivated by our desire to hide our sins from ourselves. To ignore our sins so we don't have to repent and turn away from our sinful behavior.

Praise God that he still loves us in spite of our sinful ways and our rebellion against him.