Not You? Not Me? Then Who?

We love to take ourselves out of the equation when it comes to being a part of the problem.  We will go to any length to divorce ourselves of the blame.  No lie is unacceptable if it can make us feel that we aren’t the problem.

Let’s start with something innocuous and light.  Have you ever noticed that, if you talk to people, most people will lambast Justin Bieber, Nickelback, or Star Magazine.  “Bieber’s music is stupid, as is anyone who likes it.  Ditto for Nickelback.  Oh, and Star magazine is garbage.”  Yet, all three sell millions of copies of their product.  Either each one has one die hard fan buying up those millions of copies, or there are a lot of liars out there.  I sub Middle Schools all the time.  Nothing brings about a more passionately averse reaction that to mention Bieber.  The tweens will go to great lengths to outdo one another in showing their disdain for the Biebs.  Yet, we all know that they all go home, guys included, and jam out to “Baby”. 

We do it with politics too.  We will hold up signs and scream in public, waiving our finger in self-righteous fury at “the other side”, whatever that side may be.  Yet, the truth is that big business or big government isn’t the problem.  The problem is me.  The problem is you.  The problem is the human heart.  It is rotten to the core.  That’s how come people keep giving Communism a serious look, because on paper it sounds great.  Insert a bunch of perfect humans into the equation, and communism is bliss, right?  Only problem is that humans are not only imperfect, but are far, far from it.  This is why the cycle of disappointment continues for those who believe in humanities goodness.  They think, “If only the system were more like this…” and so they vote for someone who is also for that system.  Then, that person, being human, corrupts the system, as the system was never the problem.  If you or I were in office, we wouldn’t do much better.  Maybe better than some, but that’s like saying I am not dirty when only three quarters of me is covered in mud, as opposed to the guy next is covered head to toe. 

Yet, we don’t want to admit it.  This is how atheism has spread so well.  It points the finger at the God of the Bible and blames Him for all the evil in the world.  The argument goes something like this: God is supposedly good, yet there is all of this evil and suffering in the world.  God, therefore cannot be.  We then go on and try to find “our inner strength”.  We latch onto humanism, knowingly or not, and we cling our hope to humanity, or at the very least, to our own selves.  WE ARE GOOD.  WE ARE WONDERFUL.  Everyone else is to blame. 

We never seem to ask what evil is.  Isn’t the evil that we hate humans hurting other humans?  Is God trying to invade countries and rape people?  No.  People invade other countries and rape other people.  We murder each other.  We hate.  We malign.  We call names.  We do all this, yet in our desire to clear our own names, to make ourselves feel absolved we believe the lie.  It’s God’s fault.  It’s the Democrat’s fault, Republican’s fault, Communist’s, Socialist’s, or Capitalist’s, my mother’s fault, friend’s fault.

Well, I am here to tell you my problems are my own blasted fault.  I am neck deep in it.  No one has done more harm to me than I have.  No one has disappointed me than I have.  This isn’t another step of self-righteousness, where I am ahead of the curve and am looking back at people who still believe they are good.  I can’t, because here’s the truth.  I recognize the validity on some level, and I can speak it, and I can tell it to myself.  Yet, within the next twenty-four hours, something will happen, and even though I will be telling myself this very truth, that I am the problem, my heart will be screaming otherwise, and there’s a good chance my actions will follow the latter, because come on… I’m a “good” person. 

The beautiful thing is that the God of the Bible is all about saving imperfect people.  In fact, Jesus said Himself that He came for the sinners, not the righteous.  It is His righteousness, not our own that will make us clean.  Those who know Him will stand before God the Father, and God will look to His right, to Christ, in your stead, and will see no fault, no blame.  That is our hope.  Remember Romans 5:17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.  See that? Righteousness is a gift, and gifts are given, not earned.  Let us today recognize our part in the problem, and stop lying to ourselves about how great we are, how the problem is outside, is somebody else’s.  It is ours.  Own it, and receive the grace of God.