There is nothing worse than working with a computer or tool, getting angry at that computer or tool when it isn't functioning properly, then finding out that the issue was you all along. When I first entered the workforce, I found myself as the "token millennial" who understood computers and was regularly asked to assist other coworkers in troubleshooting their e-mail, the timecard system, or other computer systems. I can't even begin to tell you how often I heard someone say "this thing just doesn't work for me" when, in reality, it worked precisely as it was designed; the user just didn't know what to do.
In my own life, I've been guilty of the same thing. I can remember one day getting so angry that I could feel my face growing red with rage and my mouth began spouting every aggressive phrase I could think of. What could cause me to get this angry? A Graco "pack n play" that simply wouldn't lock into place. Meredith and I had driven 5 hours in the middle of the night with a newborn Phoebe who wasn't accustomed to long trips so we could visit with family for the holidays. Phoebe was tired and cranky, we were exhausted and irritated, and this stupid "pack n play" was all that stood between us and getting Phoebe down quietly to sleep. Meredith tried to keep Phoebe calm and let me "have my moment" before gently suggesting that... perhaps... I wasn't following the directions which were clearly printed on the "pack n play" itself. Maybe if I just followed the directions everything would be fine. Sure enough, I stopped, followed the directions, and the "pack n play" was set up in about 30 seconds.
The problem wasn't the object I was struggling with; it was me.
I thought of this story when I ran across the account of the Hebrew people, newly freed from their slavery in Egypt, sitting at the base of Mount Sinai where God would give them the 10 commandments. In Exodus 32, we read how the Hebrew people waited while Moses spoke with God. There, they got impatient and demanded that Aaron, Moses's assistant, create them a god to worship. Aaron knew it was wrong. He knew that wasn't how God wanted to do things. He understood that Moses had given him instructions to wait for his return. Still, he disobeyed, gave the Hebrew people instructions to make a false god, and was quickly caught.
Take a look at this incredible excuse Aaron gives Moses when his sin is revealed...
22 “Don’t be enraged, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know that the people are intent on evil. 23 They said to me, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’ 24 So I said to them, ‘Whoever has gold, take it off,’ and they gave it to me. When I threw it into the fire, out came this calf!” (Exodus 32:22-24)
Wow. Just... wow. Aaron seriously tried to argue that it was the people who were "evil"... not him... and that when he threw the gold into the fire, the golden calf just miraculously appeared. What an incredible lie! One Biblical commentary (Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary) described it perfectly by saying, "Never did any wise man make a more frivolous and foolish excuse than that of Aaron."
Maybe we haven't ever made a golden calf or led an entire nation into sin, but we make mistakes all the time that we try blaming on other things, other people, or our environment. "It's not my fault that I'm so unforgiving... so many people have hurt me!" "It's not my fault that I'm not a more giving and generous person... those people will waste my charity!" "It's not my fault that have so many slanderous things to say about others... they have done so many terrible things!" The list goes on and on.
We live in a sinful world, right? That means that there will always be flaws and sins in the world we can point at to somehow rationalize things we do. Does that make our excuses good? Absolutely not. We must boldly accept ownership of our flaws and sins, because only then can we fully hand those flaws and sins over to Christ. Completely accepting grace means completely handing over everything that makes us flawed to the cross. In the end, any sin we hold back on the basis that "it's not really our fault" is something we are not handing over to Christ.
Why do that to yourself? Give it to Christ. He's already paid the penalty for whatever that sin is, so what do you really have to lose? Pride? Seems like a cheap substitute to infinite grace, but that's just one man's opinion.
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