The man answered, “That woman, the one you gave me, gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The snake deceived me, and I ate,” the woman answered.
Genesis 3:12–13
When someone makes you mad, who is more to blame, them or you? After all, if they hadn’t done what they did, then you wouldn’t have to get all mad. Or if someone tempts you to do something you know you’re not supposed to do and you do it, whose fault is it? Where does the blame lie? The truth is that at the first sign of trouble, the human mind tends to look for someone to blame. The mind is like a super detective: always getting to the bottom of things, always searching to figure out who started it and who is responsible for the mess we’re in.
So it’s not surprising that blame was the first response to the first spiritual mess people got into. Adam and Eve both blamed someone else instead of taking responsibility. Was it the snake’s fault? Would they have taken a bite without him? It’s hard to say. But either way, the result of pointing a finger at the “real” problem wasn’t quite what they had hoped.
When you blame others for your mess-ups or misery, you miss out on the one thing that can help you, and that’s taking responsibility. Taking responsibility for the things you say, do, and think is the first step in the life of faith. When you confess your sin and accept Christ, you are taking responsibility, and suddenly something amazing happens: he takes responsibility for you as well. And voila! You have found all you wanted by doing the very thing you didn’t want to do—accepting responsibility for your own life. If Adam and Eve hadn’t tried to shift the focus off themselves, would life have been different for them? We’ll never know, but what we do know is that blaming others doesn’t please God.