Genesis 3:11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.13 And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

I know many people who play the “blame game” quite frequently. My children are champions of this particular game. They love to blame “each other” for the wrong committed. They love to blame the ever popular “I forgot” or “I didn’t hear you” for their wrongs. I know many adults who blame “the church people” as their reason for quitting church, or another popular one (but an oldie) is “The Pastor”, or you can fill in his name. I’ve found we can always blame the pastor for something. “The Pastor didn’t tell me to do that.” “The Pastor was so angry when he preached that sermon that it offended me.” “The Pastor is too young or too old to listen to. He doesn’t understand us!”

I had thought that this was just the way it was in the world in which we live. We live in a day and time where people just don’t fear God. We can all find excuses for not doing whatever the Holy Spirit is nudging us to do. And by the way, if we are not feeling the Holy Spirit’s nudging to do something, then why make excuses? We must be feeling some pressure that we should do something or should stop doing something, or we wouldn’t be fighting it by way of excuses. Oh, wait! Let’s not call them excuses, let’s call them reasons. Whatever name we give them, they are not unique to our day and time as I recently noticed in the above passage of Scripture.

We can see how Adam and Eve blame someone else for their own disobedience. Why didn’t one of them say “Yes. I did it. I ate the fruit and disobeyed You, Lord.” I suppose it was the first evidence of their new sin nature. We have inherited our “excuse making” habits from way back: Adam and Eve. They too played the “blame game”, just like my kids do, and yes, just like I do from time to time. Truth is, this game is as old as time itself! From the original sin to today, we have people blaming someone else for their problems and for their sin. One such person I see everytime I look in the mirror!

When I was a teenager, I worked on a bus that picked up kiddos for Sunday school. My bus driver, Jenceson Payte, used the phrase “embrace it” a lot. He loved to tease me about how much I talked. I used to get all flustered and embarrassed and try to make excuses for my verbosity. He would look at me with a big smile, shrug and say “Hey, Valerie, you’re a talker, just embrace it.” After that statement, I could only grin and, for once, sit quietly. He was right! I’m pretty good at making excuses too! He was telling me to just accept the truth about myself and quit making excuses for it! It’s a good philosophy. In order to come to Christ for salvation, we have to admit – or embrace – the fact that we are sinners. We have to claim it before we can change it. It’s true of everything. If we don’t see a problem, then we won’t fix it.

So, the next time someone says “Why didn’t you help us set up for the worker’s banquet last night?” (or whatever) you can smile and say “I didn’t feel like it. I stayed home and watched TV instead.” or, you could just lay aside your excuses and go help out. Whatever you decide to do, just embrace it and be happy! It’s so much easier than trying to think of excuses.