It’s a question I have been asking myself for quite some time. I have no answer. As a matter of fact I am not sure it is the right question. All I know is that things have gone from bad to worse and I want to know what I can do to make it better.

I struggle with assessing blame.

Someone must have done something. Things don’t just happen. There must be a reason, a chain of events, a cause and effect process to be understood and addressed. I am not looking for someone to blame as a means of deflection. I am not trying to set myself aside as a victim of other people’s mistakes. I am not trying to find the person who should pay for the things they have done. I just want to know.

Fear made me like this.                                                       

When I was younger I was the best husband in the world. Let me rephrase that. I was, because of my ability to argue my wife into submission, never wrong and therefore the best husband in the world. Why would I do this? Simply put I had a fear of being wrong. The potential outcome of my missteps in any situation were minor but my mindset was one of fear. I was not cheating on my wife or murdering people. I had not robbed a bank or crashed a car after a night of drinking at the bar. Still, you would think by the way I argued and blamed that I had done something that, if found guilty, would result in some form of extensive punishment. If you dug a little deeper than the surface, I wasn’t afraid of being wrong, I was afraid of the consequences, consequences that were more fantasy (not the good kind) than fact.

The truth is I am more likely to blame me.

Things changed. I matured and, with some help, started to accept that being wrong wasn’t the big deal I thought it was. I started to accept blame and found my life and especially my marriage now lacked the constant conflict that I had injected into it over the years. I wish this was the end. It should have been the end, after all I finally had it all figured out.

One problem remained. It turns out that not only was I afraid of the punishment that being wrong could bring, I was also convinced that I was always wrong. Maybe it was the other person that made the mistake. Maybe I did nothing to contribute to the obvious issue at hand. Somewhere deep inside of my flawed thought process, I was still somehow involved. I may not be the one who acted inappropriately but I must have done something to drive the other person to act that way.

Life is not where I expected it to be.

Where did I go wrong? Again, I have not been cheating on my wife or murdering people. I have not robbed a bank or crashed a car after a night of drinking at the bar. Still, I can’t claim a level of perfection that would protect me from negative results. I may not have directly influenced the people who have negatively changed the course of my life but I have sinned, I do fail. Maybe the things that have taken wrong turns through no actions of my own are actually the punishment I deserve for other sins and failings.

I don’t think I am alone.

There is not a person out there that doesn’t have hidden and even not so hidden flaws. All of us have sins that we wish we didn’t commit. All of us have thoughts we wish we didn’t have. “…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” Romans 3:23 (NIV) . If we are all like this I figure that many of you have thought to yourselves when things spiral out of control with no obvious reason that it must be the consequence of sin that has gone unpunished in the past. In other words you didn’t get caught or at least you didn’t get punished. The Bible says “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Isaiah 59:2 (NIV). I must have gone wrong somewhere in the past and now God will no longer help me and may even be punishing me.

I employ a biblically based and yet flawed thought process.

I understand that I lack perfection and can even point out the flaws that are at the heart of my sinful imperfection. I understand that without the blood of Christ my failings deserve punishment. I understand that God disciplines those He loves so what I see as punishment could actually be discipline. I also understand that I have employed a flawed thought process and often assign blame on myself even if it isn’t my fault. I do not know if it is unaddressed sin that has led to my current situation or flawed thinking that leads me to believe it is unaddressed sin.

I have no answer but I have a question that maybe you can answer. Has anyone else struggled with the same dilemma?