The easiest people to blame are:
- Those who are bigger than we are and
- Those with whom we don’t have a close relationship.
As you can expect, the bigger someone is, the easier they are to blame.
- Governments. The bigger the political level, the worse they are.
- Big banks, credit cards, Wall Street.
- School systems, Boards of Education, Superintendents, school administration and staff.
- Hospitals, Healthcare providers, insurance companies, drug companies, doctors.
- TV shows, movies, musical artists, celebrities, news media.
I wouldn’t dare suggest these always display responsibility. The bigger the stage, the greater the responsibility (Luke 12:48). They’ll be held accountable for how they’ve occupied the world through their large influence. Which means our finger-pointing is ultimately pointless.
The other group whom it’s easy to blame is composed of those with whom we are not very close.
To test this, did you object to any of the groups I mentioned above?
If you are an educator, because of your personal passions, relationships with other educators, and your view “behind the scenes,” you may object that any overall scholastic shortcomings are the fault of the system.
If you work in the healthcare industry as a nurse, doctor, or sales rep, you may be slower to gripe about your industries’ shortcomings.
How many spouses in close-knit, intimate, and trusting marriages frequently blame each other? It’s hard to play the “blame game” within a thriving relationship.
What does all this mean?
There’s no one bigger than God. So it’s easy to see why so much blame can be cast his way (James 1:13-15). Whether it’s for natural disasters, a cancer diagnosis, the sudden loss of a loved one, or the rock-bottom crash of irresponsibility, it’s easy to pin our trials on God because there’s no one bigger. There’s nothing we can do to change God’s “bigness” (Psalm 139:7-12). From day one, he’s forever been the Creator, Provider, and Loving Judge.
But we can close the loophole of blame by drawing closer to him daily (Hebrews 10:22; James 4:8). The more intimate we become with his heart and mind, by staying in his word and talking to him in prayer, the more we see his infinite wisdom, mercy, love, and compassion. We won’t allow ourselves to blame him because we recognize his complete perfection.
Constantly drawing near to him forces us to see that He Himself has done everything possible to win us back (John 3:16; Hebrews 7:25). The only way we blame God because He seems far away is because we’ve distanced ourselves from His love and provision.
Blame is useless at best and destructive and debilitating to personal responsibility at worst. There are a multitude of practical reasons to eliminate it from our hearts and tongues. As we continue pruning, we must draw near to God daily to remind ourselves that He’s in control. And thus, we have nothing to blame.
