Ok, time for a gut check.

Are you a person that takes responsibility or a person that blames?

Are you quick to point the finger at someone else and say, “It’s your fault!”?

Ever wonder why our knee jerk reaction is to blame? Is blaming a new thing? When did it all start?

Lets dial the story back to Genesis to one that you may have heard of before. It’s a pretty famous story of a dialog between God and the first two people that ever lived — the story of Adam and Eve.

Lets pick the story up in Genesis chapter 3 right after the little incident over at the tree of ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ where Adam and Eve decided they would go ahead and eat of the fruit that they weren’t supposed to.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:8,9)

Just thinking out loud here, but did the thought ever cross your mind that thinking you can hide from God is an exercise in futility?

But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” God knew where he was, but was giving Adam an opportunity to man up. So does Adam man up? Nope, not at all…he says to God, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” Things get a bit more tense here because God calls him out, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

God says to Adam, “Have you eaten from it?” and Adam says, “Yeah I did! I take full responsibility for what I did. I’m the guy you need to deal with and please leave Eve out of this cuz’ she’s innocent!”

Hopefully most of you are laughing a bit here, because this is not really what went down. What did Adam do? He blamed Eve…”It’s her fault! In verse 12 we find Adam saying this, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Adams is saying, “wait a minute here, You’re the one who created her and I didn’t ask for this. Why don’t you and Eve figure this out and leave me out of it!”

He gave Adam just one rule to follow…and he blew it!

Adam blames Eve. Lets see what Eve does.

God turns to Eve and says, “Hey Eve what is this that you’ve done?” Eve responds, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” Eve is saying, “wait a minute I was tricked, this isn’t my fault either. It’s the serpents fault!”

Eve blames the serpent.

Ironically the serpent was the only one who probably took responsibility because this was his plan all along!

Isn’t it amazing when some actually stands up and takes responsibility? It may not all be their fault but the take responsibility for your part in it. Its my family, its my team, its my company, fill in the blank _____________.

When I was going through my divorce years back, it would have been very easy for me to point the finger at the now ex-wife! Trust me it’s what I wanted to do! I had a word spoken to me from a conference I went to which completely changed my perspective and was the very start place where I started taking responsibility for my own actions. I am not saying that the breakdown of my marriage was completely my fault, but what I am saying is that I am accountable for my part int it. Maintaining innocence in a divorce would fool no one. I’m not suggesting that this is an absolute for every situation, but it usually takes two, and the reality is that the story is rarely simple.

Here was that word:

If our actions or attitudes have brought hurt to another person there may be a need to go to that person and make right any wrong to break the destructive patterns in our relationships. God has forgiven us for the wrong the first time we ask. But to break the cycle of reaping from what we have sown and to begin restoring trust it is often necessary to make every effort to bring healing to others and to seek to restore the fractured relationship. Even if we feel the other person is 98% wrong and we are only 2% wrong, we are
100% responsible to walk in forgiveness and repentance for our 2%. (see Matthew 5:22–26; Psalm 109:17–19, 29).ⁱ

So let me ask the question again. Are you a person that takes responsibility or a person that blames?