“It wasn’t my fault!!” Haven’t you heard that before? You’ve said it, I’ve said it, your brother’s said it, everyone has said it! You know who else said it? Adam.
The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Genesis 3:12
New International Version
“The woman you put here…” Umm, excuse me? Did you just blame God for your problems?
You’re probably like “how was that blaming God?” Let me explain. Adam could have left it at the woman gave me some fruit, but he added on “the woman you gave me.” He was very intentional in pointing out that God was the one who gave him Eve who gave him the fruit.
Can you say “oh snap”? Yeah, he just blamed God for his problems so that he could shove it as far from himself as possible. Don’t be all like, “oh my goodness, I can’t believe he just did that, what a terrible guy.” Back up a minute and look in the mirror. Who are you to judge?
What have you blamed God for? “If only God had healed Grandma.” “If only God had kept me from saying that.” “If only…” You can blame God all day long, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t His fault.
When things don’t happen the way you want it to, you have to realize that God has a different purpose for a person. What if Grandma died so that she wouldn’t have to experience suffering she couldn’t handle that was about to happen? What if you needed to say that one stupid thing so that God could get your attention? What if the request you made of God wasn’t within God’s plan for you?
Instead of blaming God for your problems, look at your own life and realize if you have been demanding things from God that you shouldn’t have. You have no right to demand anything from God. When you ask something of God, you are humbly asking Him to, if it is within His will, do something. If it happens, wonderful. If it doesn’t, it is still ok because God has a purpose in everything.
Also, just because you yell louder, quote a scripture, sermonize in a ten minute “prayer,” end with “in Jesus name,” and feel a little something inside (it might be heartburn) doesn’t mean it is an actual God honoring prayer. If your using your prayer to push scripture in God’s face and say “You have to do this because…”, then you are actually insulting God with His Holy Words. He didn’t give you His words so you could tell Him what He can and can’t do. He gave them to you so that you can understand Him better and learn how to walk with Him and talk with Him.
Something I struggle with is letting God talk. I finish my spew and then move on to the next big thing. That isn’t ok either. We need to start taking time to let God tell us what He thinks and what He wants from us. Maybe we’ll understand why something didn’t happen how we wanted it a little better when we take that time to just listen.
Now that we’ve taken some time to look at what we need to change in our prayer life, please take a moment and apologize to God for stepping out of bounds in your relationship with Him. We’ve all done it, so don’t get “holier than thou” on me. Ask Him to show you how to enter into a humble and respectful prayer time with Him so that you will not fall into the trap of blaming God. I realized not long ago that we as humans hardly ever apologize to God before we try to fix anything. We appreciate when someone apologizes, so does God.
I pray that you and I both grow in our prayer life and that we avoid falling into the blame game. Be strong in the Lord and pray with humility in your heart.
