Blame-Shifting Game.

Being a teacher is not easy. My colleague found out the hard way. One of our students blamed my colleague for not motivating her enough. As a result, our student could not finish her homework… she said. Was it really my friend’s failure as a teacher, not being able to motivate this student to do what she was supposed to do anyway? Let’s discuss further.

According to the bible, blame-shifting *) is the oldest ancient game played in this world. Let’s open the bible, and we will find the classic example right in the beginning of the book of Genesis. 

THE BOOK OF GENESIS Chapter 2:15-23 (NIV):

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 

16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 

17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 

22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 

After God had created all animals, and Adam had given names to all of them, God realised that none of them was suitable to be the true helper for Adam (Gen 2:18). So God made Adam fall into a deep sleep, He took one of Adam’s ribs, made a woman from this rib, and He brought her to Adam.  At first, Adam was most happy when God brought this woman - called Eve - to him (Gen 2:23). But his sentiment shifted after a while.

Let’s move backward a little to see this more clearly. God had created a variety of trees, from which Adam and Eve could eat the fruits as they desired, except for one tree: The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad (Gen 2:16-17). However, Eve could not resist the fruit, and finally neither could Adam, and together they ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge.  As written, the consequences of eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will certainly die.

Chapter 3:8-12 (NIV):

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

God called Adam upon his deed. And rather than admitting his deed, Adam shifted the blame to Eve. To God, he answered: “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Adam blamed God for giving him a woman who led him to sin. He perceived that if God has given him a better woman, he would not commit to sin. Adam was so easily change his perspective on God after breaking God’s command.

We human beings easily blame others for our mistakes. We do not want to look bad because of our mistakes, and we would rather flee from them. We dump the blame on someone else to avoid that we have to take responsibility for our own faults. Are there any benefit that we may gain from the Blame-Shifting behaviour? No way. We may escape this time, but we will make other mistakes in the future. So how would we like to solve that? Blame-shifting again? How long? How often? There is a saying "No matter how good a squirrel can jump, it will fall eventually.” In plain language: no matter how good you are at blame-shifting, eventually you will suffer from the consequences of your actions. 

Instead, we may apply those famous football or basketball players' attitude, if they are interviewed after they lost in a game.  They often say words like:  "Yeah, I am sorry, I played badly today, or maybe this is a bad day for us.” “This is a learning experience for us, we need to come together again and practice harder. Hopefully we win in the next season".  They never seem to blame their team members. They admit that they made mistakes, and own the responsibility for their own behaviours or actions. Further, they also evaluate on how to correct the mistakes that they've made. 

If we never own the responsibility for the mistakes that we made, then we may not feel the need to correct it. Ultimately, we will live in this devilish circle forever. Is that what we want?  It is a matter of choices.  I would like to open those options for you to choose. (^_^)

Tribute to Rev. Bill Crowder (Bible Teacher at Our Daily Bread Ministry)  for his sermon on King Saul, which has given me inspiration to write this short article.

*) Reference - Blame Shifting Definition:

• Blame-shifting is an emotionally abusive behaviour or tactic (https://distantspark.wordpress.com/what-is-blame-shifting/)
• Blame-shifting is when a person does something wrong or inappropriate, and then dumps the blame on someone else to avoid taking responsibility for their own behavior. (https://www.psychopathfree.com/articles/5-types-of-narcissistic-blame-shifting.388/)