The Blame Game

sign post wtih words, his fault, her fault their fault, not me

Checkers, played by Queen Hatasu, of Egypt, dates back to 3000 B.C.  The game of ‘Life’ got its start in 1860.  Monopoly and Scrabble had their beginning in the early 1900’s.  But, the oldest game, although not a board game, originated at the dawn of civilization.  It’s called the “Blame Game,” and Adam registered the patent  for the entire human race.

After Adam disobeyed God, He and Eve heard God walking in the garden.  “Quick! Hide!” Adam urged, dashing behind a tree as Eve ducked behind a bush.  God asked Adam, “What have you done?”  Adam blamed the woman, and he blamed God for giving him the woman!  The woman, Eve, blamed the serpent.  And 6000 years later, I played the same Blame Game.

I was a teenager.  Four of us girls decided to try smoking in the kitchen of my house while my parents were gone. I had sneaked a cigarette the night before from my dad’s pack of Camels.   We lit the cigarette and sputtered and choked ourselves silly, but persisted until there was nothing left but the squashed lipstick-smudged cigarette butt in the ashtray.  We giggled and laughed at our failed accomplishment all the way to the corner drug store for a cherry coke.

That evening after dinner, my mother asked, “Who would like dessert?”  My older brother, Rob, my younger brother and sister, and I all voiced our delight for the rare treat. But instead of dessert, Mom quietly and deliberately set the ashtray, with its lone lipstick-smudged cigarette butt, in the center of the cleared table.

My mother sat down, cast her penetrating eyes on me, and asked,  “Whose is this?”  I felt hot.  Fear and guilt gripped me like bark on a tree.  “Rob’s,” I mumbled.

Milk shot out of my brother’s nose, my dad sat with a nondescript look, my younger brother and sister fled the kitchen, and I broke out in a sweat.  My heart pounded in my ears.  I wished I could have run and hid with my younger siblings, but there was no place to run and no place to hide.

When caught and confronted in an intentional sin, fear has a way of quickening the senses.  The defense mechanism instantly swings into protection mode.  We try to run.  We try to hide.  We blame others to escape the consequences.

The bad news: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)  But, the good news: “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 ) I attest to the indisputable saying: “There are no winners in the Blame Game.  Since day 1, every human being has played the Blame Game, but no one has ever won.  Never has and never will.

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