It's Not His Fault

Have you ever had one of those days where you are just cranky?  Well that was me today. A regular old cranky butt and there was nothing anyone could do about it. My poor co-workers, I was probably scowling at them all day long and they had no clue what was going on. Ha! Thinking my attitude would get better when I got home was a big mistake. I would actually say my attitude got worse. Because my husband gets home from work and has to leave within the hour to go coach swimming I found myself rushing to get dinner done in my extremely hot kitchen. I am sure I looked just lovely when he walked into the kitchen. My hair falling all over the place and sweat dripping down my forehead with a big old frown on my face. In his mind I just know he was thinking "Oh No! Run away!". It is pretty obvious when I am in a bad mood and at that point I was in the worst mood I had been all day. As I was making dinner I found myself running through the list of things I wanted to get done tonight, when suddenly it hit me "I was not going to have a chance to workout!" At this point I was so irritated and guess who was getting all the blame for this inconvenience in my life.....my husband. In my mind I was creating an argument against him about how unfair it was that I was not going to be able to workout because I had to come right home and make him dinner (because of course I wasn't going to be eating the meal haha). The hot kitchen, the lack of workout, the large to-do list suddenly became his fault.

Ok is anyone else starting to realize the insanity of this thought process? I hope so! About five minutes after he came home I did to. It was like this huge slap in the face. IT IS NOT HIS FAULT! This is life. My husband has no control over the weather. My to-do list also had nothing to do with him, but everything to do with my own desires. So why was it so easy to blame him?

I think that it is our natural tendency to find the scapegoat in every situation we encounter. Unfortunately when it comes to marriage and home life that person tends to be our spouse or children. I realized today as I was running through my list of reasons it was all my husbands fault that I have to make a conscious effort to stop blaming my husband for things that are completely out of his control.

Let me take this one step further. How often do we blame God for things that are not His fault? Have you ever blamed God for the bad day you had? What about losses in your life? When I think about this I realize I do this quite frequently. I blame God for not giving me guidance on a decision I have to make, but in reality maybe He is answering and I am not listening. At some point we have to quit putting the blame on God and take responsibility for our own actions. How can we fear (I am not talking about terror, but reverence) the Lord if we are constantly putting blame on him?

Two Challenges:

1. Make a conscious effort not to blame your spouse/family when things are not going swell.
2. Learn to take responsibility for your own actions and avoid blaming God when life gets tough. Remember He always has the best in mind for you!