When are able, Joni and I enjoy taking our two local youngest grandkids, Myles (7), and Chloe (10), to school. One of the games we all enjoy is, prior to heading to school, each of us will pre-select a color and make of a vehicle. We will then watch for them. The individual who gets the most spotted wins.
One morning we let Myles select first. He was going to look for black pick-up trucks. I went with white pick-up trucks. Joni chose motorcycles. Chloe opted for white Teslas. So off we went toward school, and on the hunt for our pre-chosen targets.
We hadn’t gotten too far into the trek when I had a number of white pick-ups on my mental stringer. Myles, on the other hand, was quickly discovering few people appear to prefer black pick-up trucks.
He began to bemoan his situation. He was a bit beside himself that he had black pick-up trucks, and I had white. He felt he had been slighted.
I said to him, “Myles. You went first. You could have selected white pick-up trucks. You could have picked any vehicle prior to us.” This did little to assuage his disgruntlement with the hand he had been dealt.
Drawing closer to the school, and Myles continuing to moan his frustration as to the limited amount of black pick-up trucks, his cousin fired the final salvo.
“Myles,” Chloe said, “You can’t blame us for your choices.”
There it was. She pinpointed Myles bent. In fact this tends to be a bit of an epidemic in our culture today. People tend to ‘blame others for their choices.’
People blame cigarette makers for the toll their choice to smoke has placed on their body. Many believe gun makers ought to be blamed for a choice someone makes to fire a gun in an unwise and deadly fashion. People seldom want to take responsibility for personal choices made.
Two leaders in the nation of Israel illustrate this point. There was Saul who was the first king of Israel. He made a choice that directly contradicted what God had told him to do. When he was confronted he blamed the soldiers he led (1 Samuel 15). Ultimately his unwillingness to take responsibility cost him his leadership role.
David found himself in a somewhat similar situation. He, too, went beyond instructions he was given. When he was confronted with it, he took personal responsibility (2 Samuel 24). He blamed no one. He owed it.
We all want the freedom to choose, but too often we resist the personal responsibility such choices render. When we take responsibility for choices it builds our character. It is only when we recognize we are where our choices have taken us that can we genuinely find courage to choose differently.