08/05/16 FACE THE FACTS
Facing our own failures is basic to success, while blaming others perpetuates our failure.
SO, JUST STOP AND 'FESS UP, BY SAYING. "I DID IT; IT IS MY FAULT."
As early as the Garden, God required Adam to face his own spiritual failure. When God asked Adam, "Where are you," it was not for God's benefit, since God obviously knew the answer. God requires personal responsibility and accountability and acknowledgement. When we fail to fulfill our responsibility, we are held accountable. However, if a person ignores or denies his own failure, he will not see his need for change, for help, for a new start.
God asked Adam if he had eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which in fact, God had forbidden Adam to eat. Instead of answering with an honest, "Yes or No," Adam blamed Eve. God then asked Eve what she had done, and she blamed the Serpent. God did not even ask the Serpent, but rather pronounced His judgment. Satan cannot be forgiven, saved, therefore confession would not have helped him.
Facing our failure includes more than simply our moral failure. It includes our failures in judgment, relationships, choices, performance. The sooner a person faces the fact of his own responsibility (his own failure), then the sooner he is able to correct his failure, or at least adjust to consequences. Denial and blame shifting is simply covering failure with more failure, and the more we deny and blame others, the greater our failure becomes, and the more difficult it becomes to escape the consequences of our failure and the less likely we are to succeed.
A single failure is much more easily, much more quickly, much less painfully corrected than two or ten failures. The old saying is, "Nothing succeeds like success." It might also be said, "Nothing fails like failure." A single, un-confessed, un-acknowledged failure grows into a life of failure and blame shifting and denial. Pride and self promotion refuses to say, "I failed," and the person continues to fail because he/she does not turn from failure. After all, why should people turn or change if they don't see themselves at fault? Failure to accept personal responsibility is a way of hiding personal incompetence.
BUT WHAT ABOUT the fact that sometimes other people are at fault. Yes, that is a possibility. But confessing and pointing out another person's failure does not help you. Even if someone else was at fault, the question is not, "What did they do?" The question is, "What did you do?" It is better to just face your own failure than it is to point to someone else, because that is still just a way of avoiding responsibility for your own failure.
One more thing. When the blame game starts, even when it might have some truth in it, the fact is that you are hurting other people, including the innocent. In fact, blame shifting very seldom stops with other people who have failed. Blame shifting deteriorates to the point of blaming those who are not at fault in any way. And blame shifters can always justify blaming other people, because they mistakenly think that lowering other people will lift themselves up.
MAN UP. Face your own failures. Quit blaming other people. quit excusing yourself. Seek help. Accept correction.
