Getting out of the Blame Game
November 20, 2003
By Rev.
Todd Crofford
Sr. Pastor
Laurel Wesleyan Church
Our lives are not the sum total of our dreams, but rather a culmination of our
decisions. Since the beginning of man this universal law has been true; our
choices have consequences and we must live with the ramifications of our
decisions. Yet in recent years, we have become so uncomfortable with having to
live with bad results from poor choices or inadvertent mistakes, we have
embraced the oldest trick in the book… find someone else to blame. Way back in
the garden, Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the snake. But our first parents were
not nearly so skilled at the blame game as we have become.
In 1994, Stella Liebeck helped open the floodgates to today’s out of control
litigations when her now famous McDonald’s coffee spill that scalded her lap and
netted her a jury award of $2.9 million. Since then, the trend has worsened.
This past summer, teenagers Ashley Pelman and Jazlyn Bradley sued McDonalds,
pointing fingers at the fast food chain as carrying responsible for their
obesity. Fortunately, Judge Robert Sweet threw their case out of court, saying:
"It is not the place of the law to protect them against their own excesses."
Look out though; Judge Sweet also included commentary within his ruling that
indicates similar cases may carry merit for large awards in the near future. Now
some consumers have gone after Kraft Foods and are attempting to pass a law in
California that would make it illegal to sell Oreos to children. Can’t you see
the grocery clerk now, “Can I see some I.D. before I sell you those Oreos young
man?” Where will this craziness end?
The beginning of the road back to sanity is to recognize that these foolish
cases have their roots in something much more destructive. There is a pervasive
problem in a culture where individuals refuse to take responsibility for their
own actions. Simply put, we must restore the recognition that we reap what we
sow, and not just where we place coffee cups or whether or not we eat
super-sized, but in much more essential things like telling the truth, choosing
our friends, whether or not we obey the law, and how we treat one another.
These, and many more, are life altering decisions carrying tremendous weight of
importance.
Growing up, when I would get myself in a jam, my mom used to say, “You made your
bed, you lay in it.” While that may sound cold or uncaring, I am grateful that
she taught the direct relationship between choices and results. In turn, I
recognize that while my children are young, I must carefully train them in the
power of decision making; because slowly and steadily in life we set our
children free to make increasingly larger and more important decisions. You
can’t be there every time they decide whether or not to get into a car, to
attend a party, to drink, to do drugs, or whether or not to cheat on a test.
In addition, when children make poor choices, we must resist the temptation to
constantly shield them from the results. Such behavior could end up literally
deadly for them when a future situation goes totally out of control.
So while it is always tempting to think up a rationalization for why my current
situation “isn’t my fault”, it is infinitely better to claim responsibility
wherever possible and do my dead-level best to make my lives better through wise
choices. Claiming beats blaming every time.
The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of Site One
Networks, Inc, the congregation of
the Laurel Wesleyan Church or the Wesleyan Church International. You may respond
to the author directly by E-mailing laurelwesleyan@siteone.net
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