I will start this correspondence with a question, which I am sure everyone will have an answer. Who is in control of your world? This question should be asked often, especially when someone uses excuses for his or her shortfalls. In all my years of listening to people talk about their lives, without fail, they mention how someone else is to blame for their misfortune. When a person sees that their plans are not working out as anticipated, instead of detouring, they continue with the same plan hoping that things will turn around. If your business is not bringing in enough money, why do you sit back, hoping that customers will come through your door without you doing something to attract them? Exercising your brain by working smarter and harder can reap dividends; however, repeating the same regiment without creativity will not produce new results.
What or who do you blame when things are not going well? Whenever the blame game is played, responsibility is shifted or pointed in another direction other than oneself. People blame the economy for failed businesses – which may be true to some extent – but the bulk of the blame for a failed business should be on the owner. When you own a business, this says that you have taken control of your financial future. However, to shirk the responsibility of the results of its failure is pure cowardice. The business owner who takes photographs and signs autographs as the owner of a successful business, will accept little or no blame for his or her business failure. This same principle applies to a failed marriage. Just what does it mean to have irreconcilable differences? I know, it means two people unwilling to fulfill the vows they took on the day they got married. If you are going give an excuse for your marriage falling apart, at least own up to giving the truth concerning why your marriage did not succeed.
In hindsight, people mention how they would do things differently if they were given the chance. In actuality, people have second, third and subsequent occasions during the process of their weak efforts to make corrections and take control before things totally fall apart. However, many are too blind to see how they can right their wrongs because they are too busy looking for a way out of a ship that they can only view as sinking. Unfortunately, second chances do not exist; however, new opportunities do.
When a person sits down in their most comfortable chair in their living room, they usually take control of the universal remote and turn on the television or CD player. They have declared their kingship by sitting on their throne while holding the scepter (remote control) in their hand. They are looking for personal gratification of being entertained while watching television. Like the kings of old, if the king was not amused by the court jester, the king would ask for the next act while sitting on his throne. People have the same experiences everyday to control their world. Our remote control helps us to control the elements before us and we never look to blame anyone while we are in control. If you do not like what is on a particular channel, you change it. No big deal, right? In plain English, what you do not like, you change, because the results are in your control.
Is it fair to say that God is in control of everything concerning your life? No. I am not taking any power away from God because that is impossible, but I am placing the power of your life back into your hands. If God is in control of everything, including your life, then He should be blamed. However, we have to look at life from the standpoint of who is making the decisions for you. Did God have you to overextend yourself financially? Did God sign your name on the loan application? Did God make you buy the things that you truly could not afford? Is God responsible for your procrastination? Did God make you say “I Do” to the person you married? I can go on, but I think you get the message. People, and Christians alike, feel they are genetically predisposed to making excuses and shifting blame away from themselves because our progenitor failed to face up to his failure. According to the Bible, Adam, God’s created son, failed to own up to his blunder and blamed Eve for his sin of disobedience. The principle of first things, is that whatever is in the original (Adam) will show up in the successors. To use this as an excuse for failure is completely absurd.
My attempt is not to give you a Bible lesson. However, I am only pointing out the fallacies that people generally believe, which are not Biblically substantiated. Adam’s rebellion was not based on experiences because he had only known obedience up to the point of his treason. Adam’s disobedience to God was not God’s fault either. Adam’s failure was predicated on the ability to make personal decisions, which he failed to make the right one. The truth of the matter is that you are genetically predisposed to controlling the outcome of your own life. Your fate rests in your hands, not in God’s. Your decisions are your decisions, and no one can take the blame for your personal decisions.
Flip Wilson, the famed hilarious comedian, oftentimes played a character named, Geraldine. Whenever Geraldine did something inappropriate, she would say, “The devil made me do it!” It may be comedic, but it is also crippling. If you do not control your world, your life will be placed in the hands of those who care nothing about you. You will never be allowed to stretch out and explore all the possibilities life has to offer. Refuse to be a slave in your own world!
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