we excuse & accuse…

when we’re afraid of admitting our faults we become defensive. we excuse and accuse. we excuse ourselves: it’s not my fault. it’s not my problem. i didn’t do it. we excuse ourselves – i had every reason that this happened. and we accuse somebody else: it’s all your fault. we pass the buck. we pass the blame. accuse and excuse.

now this is not a new thing. they did it back in the first couple. genesis 3.12-13 (ncv) after they’d sinned adam said, you gave this woman to me! who is he blaming? he’s blaming GOD. you gave this woman! he doesn’t even call her eve. and she gave me the fruit so i ate it. that's his excuse. he excuses himself and he accuses his wife. he took it like a man; he blamed his wife. eve replied, the snake tricked me.

now for two thousand years bible scholars have been debating was she talking about adam there? and ever since this relationship, men have blamed women and women have called men snakes.

we hate to admit our faults. we hate to admit our sins. we hate to admit our mistakes and our weaknesses. we deny them, we defend them, we diminish them, but most of all we like to blame somebody else for them. “it’s not my fault!”

now the reason we don’t like to admit our mistakes is we’re afraid that people won’t love us if they see our faults. it’s a fear of rejection. so we try to make excuses.

we hate to admit our mistakes. when you fear your faults and you’re afraid to admit your faults, you become very distant, you become very defensive and you won’t let people get close to you. you wear a mask. you cover up.

i know couples who’ve been married twenty years and they still don’t really know each other. they’re still trying to wear masks, twenty years later. they’re still trying to keep areas – fears – they don’t want to share their fears with each other. they’re hiding their fears even though they’ve been living together 10, 20 or more years. there’s a word for that kind of marriage. the word is misery.

when you’re not free enough to share your fears with those closest to you, you’ve got a problem and it keeps you being defensive. you pretend like everything’s ok.

what are you pretending isn’t a problem in your relationship? you both know its there but nobody talks about it. you’re very defensive about it when it’s brought up. “i don’t want to talk about it.” pretending doesn’t work! pretending prolongs the pain. if you want to be free from your faults you have to face your faults.

just a thought from the front porch…