One day many, many years ago, four of us young teenage girlfriends decided to try smoking. My father smoked so it was up to me to get a cigarette from his pack. Since both of my parents worked, we set up shop in the kitchen of my house. We lit the cigarette and of course, we sputtered and choked ourselves silly, but we persisted until there was nothing left but the lipstick-smudged cigarette butt squashed in the ashtray. We giggled and laughed at our failed attempt all the way to the corner drug store for a cherry coke.
That evening after supper, my mother asked, “Who would like dessert?” to which my entire family cheered our delight. My mother cleared the dishes as we waited with anticipation for our rare treat. But instead of dessert, she quietly and deliberately set the ashtray with its lone lipstick-smudged cigarette butt in the cen
ter of the table. She sat down, looked at me with penetrating eyes, and asked, “Whose is this?”
“Rob’s,” I said.
Milk shot out of my brother’s nose, my dad sat stunned, my younger brother and sister fled the kitchen, and I broke out in a sweat. My mother only raised her eyebrows.
I wished I could’ve run and hidden with my siblings, but there was no place to run and no place to hide.
This true story reminds me of another true story of the first man and woman after they had eaten the forbidden fruit in a garden at the beginning of time . Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
“Quick! Hide!” Adam urged, dashing behind a tree as Eve ducked behind a bush.
What did it sound like – to hear God walking in the garden that day? Surely the husband and wife had heard the Lord God walk in the garden numerous times before. After all, He would often come in the cool of the day and they would run to meet Him. They would talk intimately together. They delighted in the Lord and He delighted in them. What sounded different on this particular day?
Fear and guilt gripped Adam and Eve as bark clings to a tree – like the tree in the middle of the garden; the forbidden tree.
“Where are you?” the Lord called.
Adam stepped out from behind the tree. “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid, so I hid,” he said, barely audible. He dared not raise his eyes to meet the penetrating eyes of the Lord God Almighty.
“What is this you have done?” the Lord asked.
The man replied, “The woman You gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit, and I ate.” Adam not only blamed the woman for his wrongdoing, he blamed God for giving her to him!
The Lord turned His gaze to the woman and waited.
She crept from behind the bush. “The serpent deceived me, so I ate,” she blurted. She certainly wasn’t going to be a game player in the blame game.
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. But the blame game stopped with the serpent. He had no defense, no one to blame. And the Lord God pronounced His judgments to each.
When caught and confronted in a deliberate sin, fear and guilt has a way of quickening the senses. We try to run; to hide. We try to escape the consequences. We play the blame game.
“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 is, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
There are no winners in the blame game.