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| Share Agape for the week of September 22, 2003 |
| Who's To Blame? "A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord." Proverbs 19:3 I recently received the following email "Forward:" "A lawyer defending a man accused of burglary tried this creative defense: 'My client merely inserted his arm into the window and removed a few trifling articles. His arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offense committed by his limb.' 'Well put,' the judge replied. 'Using your logic, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses.' That's America today! If a woman burns her thigh on the hot coffee she was holding in her lap while driving, she blames the restaurant. If your neighbor's daughter gets pregnant, they blame the school for giving poor sex education. If your friend's grandchildren are brats without manners, they blame television. If your uncle smoked three packs a day for 40 years and dies of lung cancer, his family blames the tobacco company�" How many people do you know who've made mistakes in their life (large or small), and when the mistake is discovered, place the blame elsewhere? They might say they had no control over their arm (as in the joke), or their eyes, or their lusts. Or they might blame their mother, their boss, their spouse, the government� I think most of us know somebody like that these days. And if we're really honest with ourselves, we'll admit that, at some point in our life, we've been that way, too. Today's Bible study discusses the most perverse sort of blame. We do something wrong--and we blame God for it. We decide to dismiss the Bible as "just written by men." We choose to dismiss Christianity as "intolerant." We believe the Bible and Christianity are true, but we choose to live apart from God by lying, having sex outside of marriage, or by generally not doing what God asks us to do. And then we sit in the middle of the mess that is our lives and cry out: Why did God allow this to happen to me? How could you, God?! Why, you're not a loving God at all! For those of you who've seen the 1994 flick Forest Gump, there's one particular scene in that movie that brings this subject to life. Remember the character Lt. Dan (played by Gary Sinise)? He chooses to live life his own way, on his own terms. Yet when his life falls apart, we see him in the middle of a storm at sea, shaking his fist at God, angry that the Lord would allow all the "bad stuff" in life to happen. Watching this scene in a movie theatre, there are usually quite a few laughs--short, and a little uncomfortable, perhaps--but nonetheless laughs. I think that's at least partially because so many people can relate to Lt. Dan, yet also recognize how very silly it is for him to be angry at God. Lt. Dan created his own path in life, and any mistakes he made are his own. Some might wonder why God doesn't step in and rescue us, anyway. But wouldn't we resent it? Imagine the teenager who decides he wants to be a drummer in a rock band; when his parents try to dissuade him and draw him into a more stable profession, what's his reaction? He resent it, of course, and is all the more determined to accomplish his own goal, despite what his parents do and say. We don't like to think of ourselves as that bull-headed. But we are. God has given us the free will to follow or not follow him. It's entirely our personal choice. And who would have it otherwise? Without free will, we'd be puppets who had no choice but to do God's bidding. That's not what God wants (a bunch of robotic slaves), and it's not what we want, either. So, according to the Bible, the wise person accepts the consequences of his or her actions. And they remember that even when they've done something dumb, or something contrary to what God wants them to do, God is willing and eager to forgive and forget, and help them down a new, more godly, path. MORE ~~~> |
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