if I had to guess...

I think sometimes people like being victims...no-not like in a real, I want to get shot or mugged or something truly heinous sort of way...but in that people just do not want to take responsibility for certain things in their lives. They want to blame other things, people, circumstances for just about everything. For instance, I have had a series of car troubles recently...not really a series but a couple of things...and one of them cost a bit of money. The thing is if I am being honest it would not have cost so much if I had gotten it taken care of sooner. But what do I do? I try to blame something else.

A lot of people blame luck, like, "I'm unlucky in love" or "I have terrible luck driving." Maybe those people should drive better and take a long look in the mirror and not a crystal ball as to why their relationships fail. Christians on the other hand...well we attribute every bad thing that happens to the devil. We say things like, "Satan is attacking me with my car" or "The devil is really hammering me with household repairs" or "Satan is really getting to me at (and you fill in the blank)." Now, don't get me wrong...Satan is very much at work in the world, and he is for sure trying to bring people down, but the way that happens is that sometimes he just lets us trip ourselves up. Maybe Satan was attacking me with car problems, maybe he was the one that kept me from getting that noise checked out for more than a year...maybe he was using my own tendency to procrastinate against me. That is a real possiblity but don't I bare the responsiblity for the procrastination.

What I am saying is that, while there are definitely demonic forces in the world trying to undermine faith and hope, we shouldn't look to blame them in the hope of letting ourselves off the hook. 1 John 4:4 says it pretty plainly, "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you [Christ] is greater than the one [Satan, demonic forces] who is in the world." We don't have an excuse. We have to turn every situation over to God, and if we have a responsibility in the problems of our lives we should own up to them.

Playing the victim is so cliche, but taking responsiblity for our lives and asking God to actually transform us that takes discipline and work...two things that most of would rather do without.