“For we are each responsible for our own conduct” (Galatians 6:5)
When our son Keith was in high school, he played soccer. In fact, he was the goalie. Dressed head to toe in protective gear, it was his responsibility to deflect the opposing teams attempts to get the ball in the net and make a goal. I always wondered how safe a game could be if you had to wear protective gear that covered your entire body.
We are all goalies to some degree or another. We protect ourselves in order to divert, avert, and sidetrack any blame that could come our way. We want someone else to carry the load of responsibility. So, we do all we can to protect ourselves, to kick away criticism and condemnation, and eventually come out looking innocent, bearing no liability for wrong.
My brother and I used to play the game when we were kids. Our boys played it when they were young. I could not tell you how many times when something got broken that one of the boys would point to the other and say, “Him did it!” Reid and I have played goalie in our marriage more times than either of us want to admit, kicking the ball at the other in order to deflect blame. Politicians are masters at being goalies. Every human being is a goalie! It’s part of our fallen nature. We inherited it from our parents, who inherited it from their parents, who inherited it from their parents – who inherited it down the ancestry line from grandma Eve and grandpa Adam. God kicked the ball to Adam, challenging him with the question “Have you eaten from the tree?” Adam kicked the ball back in Eve’s direction “The woman you put here with me gave it to me.” Bad kick! Not only did he point the finger at Eve, but in the worse open my mouth and stick my foot in it blunder in the history of mankind, attempted to blame God for giving him the little woman in the first place. Then Eve deflected the ball “Wasn’t my fault. It’s the fault of the slimy thing Mr. Zookeeper over there named a serpent.”
We would much rather place guilt and responsibility on anyone, rather than honestly confess our sin. We do it in our homes, in our offices, in our churches, in our government, in many of our relationships. We are no different, no better than our ancestors in the Garden were. When man sinned, their sin produced two immediate results. The first was hiding from God, rather than going to him for the forgiveness needed. The second characteristic was to become goalies in the game of life.
Our biggest problem lies inside each of us. It is our sinful hearts that cause us to protect ourselves and kick the ball of guilt sailing in someone else’s direction. Because sin is a matter of the heart before it is ever an issue of our behavior, we can only cease being goalies by stripping off all our protective gear and taking responsibility where responsibility abides – inside our sinful hearts.
So, let’s stop blaming others for our sins, our mistakes, our goof-ups – whatever we want to call them. God is the One we ultimately sin against, so it is his forgiveness our hearts really need. The apostle John addressed our hope in I John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Let’s lay aside all of our protective gear, stop trying to be goalies, and get in the game of life with honesty before God and others.
Darlene