That’s Your Responsibility
Passing the buck! The blame game! It’s not my fault! “No fault insurance”. “Don’t ask, me! I didn’t do it.”
It really doesn’t matter whether it is the political parties in an accusing mode or rearing children to be responsible. It seems that most folks want to blame someone else for any mistake that is made. So, when the homework is not finished, I try the old addage: “The dog ate it”. When I am behind in my commitment to someone or something, I excuse myself by blaming the economy, the stock market, the congress, the president or my emergency need that interrupted the commitment. Very rarely do I simply admit that it was my fault or my bad decision that got me into the difficulty I’m in right now.
Have you been there? It has happened to lots of people down through history from the Garden of Eden until now. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. But did you know it happened to Judas Iscariot?
Convicted in his own heart about the innocence that he had betrayed, Judas took the money back to those who had paid him to deliver Jesus. He said simply: I have betrayed innocent blood. The blame-shifting reponse from the religious leaders of that day was a cold set of words: “What is that to us? That is your responsibility!” The very people who had been plotting to trap, punish and kill Jesus were acting as if they had no part in the plotting at all. Actually they were exposed by the betrayer that they had paid. They didn’t like it and just shifted blame to Judas, as if they were completely innocent.
I guess that the more guilty we are, the more we are prone to shift the blame to someone else. The devil hasn’t changed his methods in thousands of years. Knowing that, I really need to resolve to not blame someone else for the foolish choices I’ve made. Maybe that’s what it means to be responsible.
