Blame Games

          There’s a great deal of blame being passed around the media, water coolers, and living room sofas. Democrats blame Republicans, Republicans blame Democrats, racists blame the President and everybody blames the Tea Party for the current financial fiasco in our country. Not to be left out, I’m going to add my two cents worth.

          You may ask what that has to do with musings on the gospel of Christ? I’m glad you asked.

The answer is: absolutely everything.

This blame game would not be happening if every one of us looked for the cause in the right place. We can find the real culprits for our country’s decline and debit by looking in the mirror. The person you see there is all for cutting spending—as long as it’s not his spending. He is all for spending more to help the poor---as long as it’s not more of his money being spent. He’s all for higher taxes as long as it is the “rich” being taxed. In biblical terms we are all about getting at our neighbor’s mote and ignoring our own beam.

“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”

Christians hear this all the time from the world—and rightfully so, it is the truth. What the worldly wise men who spout these words don’t realize, or don’t want to know, is that they apply equally to all men. He who calls another person a liar is not hateful if, in fact, the other person refuses to tell the truth. He may be simply overlooking his is own propensity for error.

Most Christians I know believe America has been blessed by God. Be that as it may, America cannot borrow its way to prosperity. If that were possible, we’d have all been rich years ago. Our country must to stop.

Period.

We all know that. We may not practice it as we should, but we know it just the same. Outlay cannot exceed income indefinitely. Someday, probably not today, but someday, it will end in ruin. The longer it goes, the harder the crash will be and the more people it will hurt. As a nation and as individuals, we must stop spending money we don’t have. As government workers will tell you, the problem is that for every dollar not spent, somebody feels the pinch. No one wants to be that somebody.

I get it. I work with people everyday who want to their problems fixed without pain. If you’re not mature enough to know it, I’ll tell you, it’s not always possible. Motes and beams seldom come out painlessly. A shot of antibiotics hurts, but does it hurt as bad as gangrene? You tell me. Until every individual American is willing to put aside his wants and do what has to be done—we are all to blame and we will all go to ruin together. Phil Gramm called us a nation of whiners—he was being generous.

“And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!”

 “But wisdom is justified of all her children.”