The Blame Game (with Kathy Gray)

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, is your life not going the way you want it to? Maybe you’re caught up in something called the blame game. Don’t miss today’s More Faith, More Life podcast, because I’ll tell you what that game is. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. I’m your host, Steve Gray, and I got along with me today, my sidekick, wife, Kathy Gray.

0:00:21 – (Kathy Gray): Hey.

0:00:21 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, Hello. So we’re going to be together today talking about something that’s going to make your life better. We talk about the theme of more faith, more life. And we want to put together, if you operate in faith, if you could get more faith in God, have faith in God, it’s going to produce more life. And when I say life, I’m not talking about eternal life after you die, I’m talking about life while you’re still alive. And somebody used to say, Kathy, remember they used to say, I don’t care. I don’t need help in the sweet by and by. I need help in the nasty now and now.

0:00:50 – (Kathy Gray): Amen. Remember that?

0:00:52 – (Steve Gray): And so that’s what we were very practical Christianity in helping you get all that God has for you and helping you change your mind. God’s a good God. He’s got good things in store for you. So the last thing you want to do is lose your faith or lose your connection to him. So today we’re going to talk about the blame game. And it’s been an exciting time. As you know, Kathy, we’re getting through a political season, and we’re going to be in a transition between one political party to another political party.

0:01:21 – (Steve Gray): It’s always an exciting time because the one that’s going out has those days left. And what are they going to do? Sometimes they sign all kinds of things and they. What is it? People on death row, what do they do? They set them free. They don’t set them free.

0:01:37 – (Kathy Gray): Stay of execution.

0:01:38 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, stay of execution.

0:01:39 – (Kathy Gray): Pardon them.

0:01:40 – (Steve Gray): Pardon them. And all that stuff goes on in the meantime. Then the other administration is getting gearing up and going to make its changes. Well, our culture is showing itself like crazy right now because rather than no matter who they are, because, I mean, some Republicans won, some Democrats lost, both sides. But if you lost or won or whatever, go back and look and say, well, I lost because. And then you can’t say, I lost because it’s somebody else’s fault. That’s the blame game.

0:02:10 – (Steve Gray): And that gets you nowhere in this life. Because with God, what do we do? He says, we confess our sins, we talk about ourselves, we Say this is where I went wrong. And then he forgives us. Yeah. Of all our stupid things we did. But now we have to learn from our mistakes. And there aren’t very many people that do that. So anyway, the blame game, Kathy, is going crazy. It probably will continue to go crazy. It’ll probably go crazy into the new year, but we don’t have to do it.

0:02:38 – (Steve Gray): We need to. We need to decide that blame is dangerous, too dangerous for us.

0:02:46 – (Kathy Gray): That’s right. Well, you know, first I would like to define what blame is. According to God, blame is pointing the finger at someone else and putting the responsibility of something you did wrong, putting the responsibility of it onto someone else. That’s God says, you know, that’s how I’m seeing people do. People make a mistake, but then they never want to take any kind of accountability or responsibility.

0:03:15 – (Kathy Gray): They just want to point the finger and say someone else is responsible for my stupidity. And, you know, you think the blame game has gone on from the beginning of humanity. Think about Adam and Eve, you know, and the woman that you gave me. Adam said, she’s the one who gave me this apple or pomegranate, and she’s the one who made me sin. And she did that. And then so he did that, and he was putting the blame on his wife for giving him this fruit, and he making the choice to bite into it and bring sin into humanity.

0:03:54 – (Kathy Gray): And then she also did the same thing. And you know, Eve, it’s really easy for Eve to do. Also, she blamed the serpent and she said, hey, man, it was that serpent. You know, he snuck up on me. So the blame game started with the first marriage or the first man and wife. And it’s just wreaked havoc ever since then and put stress and division between husbands and wives or in families. And then we go on up to.

0:04:23 – (Kathy Gray): In governments or nations or the people of a nation. And so somehow I think we got to stop this game.

0:04:32 – (Steve Gray): Well, yeah, and you know, it says Eve was deceived. She didn’t. Didn’t say she sinned.

0:04:40 – (Kathy Gray): She was deceived.

0:04:40 – (Steve Gray): She was deceived and she was tricked. But nevertheless, that’s. Then what do you do after that? It’s interesting, there’s too much speculation here, but in what I’m about to say, but there is the possibility that the course could have been changed had the serpent tricked Eve. Because she was tricked, she was deceived. She’s thinking like, hey, this makes sense. La la la, right? And then she came and she ate. Then she came and gave some to her husband.

0:05:09 – (Steve Gray): But when her husband did it. It doesn’t say he was tricked. He knew he had inside. This is. He probably didn’t say sin. But this is not what. We’re not obeying. We’re not obeying what would have happened, you think? Well, you don’t have to think about it because it’s too much speculation. Isn’t there the possibility, though, that Eve could have been deceived and come to her husband and said, help me. Help me, Adam, I’ve been tricked by that snake.

0:05:38 – (Steve Gray): I got tricked. Help me. And he could have said, it’s all right. I’m holding the line here. I’ll go to God for you. He could have been an intercessor. He could have been like a savior. Could have been like Jesus did. I’ll go to God for you, and I’ll talk it over with him. Now, we may have. They may still have to have bloodshed or whatever for the remission of sin. But, you know, it’s possible, I think, that it could have stopped there by saying, you know what, Eve, it’s okay.

0:06:06 – (Steve Gray): I forgive you. And God said, eve, it’s okay. But once it hit both of them, there was nobody left because Eve was deceived. We go like, you know, she got tricked. She didn’t want to be bad. She got tricked. But when Adam did it, he knew better. So there’s the. Now they both went down. Okay, so there’s a little bit of speculation there, but could it have been turned? You know, maybe, maybe not in an ideal. Maybe. Maybe forgiveness could have come in if she had to run to her father and to her husband, and her husband runs to God. Okay, the reason you can speculate like that, it may have not happened. There may have been too many rules.

0:06:43 – (Steve Gray): There may have been God said, you eat of it, you’ll die. That’s it. Nothing you can do about it. But we also have here, Kathy, the character of God. We know the character of God. So we know there’s always the potential that he could say, I forgive you, or, okay, let’s do it this way. Now you can’t do it. There’s no potential. So it’s a little speculation, but it could have been. It could have been turned if Eve had taken the blame.

0:07:09 – (Steve Gray): And then once he. Once he took. I mean, once he did it, he was done for. But anyway, he blamed his wife. Well, she blamed the serpent. He blamed his wife, and it’s just a big mess.

0:07:24 – (Kathy Gray): And then, you know what? Ever since then, humanity has been far. They’ve missed the mark of God. They’ve missed the heights and the glory of God. They’ve lost it all because they. They could have been growing constantly in more and more of a relationship with God. But instead, that blame game, it stops your growth. Because now you’re not saying, I’m responsible before God. I am the one. I did it. No one else.

0:07:52 – (Kathy Gray): It’s me, it’s me, it’s me. Oh, Lord. And then when you live like that, you miss out on God, opportunities to continue growing you’ve liked. When you say it’s someone else’s fault and do that blame thing, you immediately stop your forward growth because you can’t ever take that accountability, that responsibility, and just acknowledge with God. And, you know, I think this blame game really stems from pride instead of humility that you don’t want to be caught.

0:08:26 – (Kathy Gray): And, you know, you’ve taught us before about, like, repentance. And there’s a fake repentance and there’s a true repentance. And when a fake repentance is, oh, no, you got caught, you got caught. So you do these alligator tears, and you’re just so sad because you got caught, not because you’re responsible, but true repentance. Now, I know you’ve taught me this over the years many times. True repentance is you take all the blame, you soften your heart to the Lord, and you just say, you know, I’m the one Lord, and I regret what I did and I’m ashamed.

0:09:06 – (Kathy Gray): And you don’t even have to cry. You know, with true repentance, you say, no one made me do that. My husband didn’t make me do that. You know, that was one of my biggest problems in ever getting free with the Lord, was I would blame everybody else, and I’d almost get to the point of true repentance. And then I’d say, oh, but I remember when that one person did this and that to me. So it’s okay for me to continue blaming and holding a grudge.

0:09:36 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, you know, we got all these beautiful lights around us right now, but the screen went off over here for us. Just thought I’d tell our tech guys the one we were looking at, but yeah, exactly. Because when you. A lot of times it’s not all your fault.

0:09:55 – (Kathy Gray): Exactly.

0:09:55 – (Steve Gray): A lot of times other people could be blamed, but there is no growth. There is no good fruit by blaming someone else. So what’s missing in Christianity today so much is that sense of responsibility. Everybody’s a victim in our culture, not just church, but it’s Hit the church too. So all the sermons you can tell, thousands of sermons that Cathy, are preached on Sunday from the victim mentality that you can tell they’re preaching to us like we’re victims.

0:10:25 – (Steve Gray): We’ve been slapped around, and we’re barely hanging on. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. We’re locked in unforgiveness. It’s not my fault. You don’t understand me. I’ve got hurt feelings and these are things that will only make everything worse. You’re never going to get better. You’re always going to stay sick. So you take responsibility, as much responsibility as you can. You can’t be responsible for everybody else.

0:10:50 – (Steve Gray): But a lot of times the responsibility, Kathy, was not you did something. The responsibility is take the response you had to somebody else doing something. Because our responses are required. We have requirements. We are required in the kingdom of God to respond in the fruit of the spirit. It’s not an option. That’s requirement. Love and joy and peace, peace, patience, kindness, those are requirements to being part of the spirit filled community.

0:11:20 – (Steve Gray): You don’t have a choice and you’ll get caught in it. You know, if you’re speeding and you weigh too much and you get stopped and they know how fast you were going, you know, you can’t blame. We all try to think of a quick story, right, to blame maybe why it’s not my fault that I was speeding.

0:11:36 – (Kathy Gray): But you know what? I blamed you once. Can I just insert that little story? I blamed you once about my speeding. You had sent me to our church and we just lived like, you know, five minutes away and you one day you were really busy at your office and you said you have to go to the church because da da da da da da da da da is going on right now and you need to, you need to go in and you need to take care of it because you’re the only one who can represent me, Steve Gray, to give the answer.

0:12:04 – (Kathy Gray): So I got in the car and I admit I was driving down that main road to our church so fast, I mean so fast. And there’s. It goes under the highway bridge and there sitting there were two motorcycle policemen and they waved me over. Well, at this time we had a big billboard on the corner of and it said, and it had a picture of you and me and it said, you know, revive church. And there’s our faces real big.

0:12:35 – (Kathy Gray): And so the guy stopped me and I know you’re never supposed to do this, but I immediately admitted blame and I said I am responsible. So I did the right thing. I said, I am so responsible, sir. My husband told me to go to church, and I’m the pastor of this church, and my husband told me to go take care of something. And the people of our church are so important to me, and the needs of our church are so important.

0:12:59 – (Kathy Gray): I was speeding to get there. I was sent to help them out, and then the guy went over and talked to the other policeman. And then I saw them pointing at the sign. And then they came back over, and one man said to the other, see her face? This is the first lady of World Revival Church. Let her go. And I go, well, do you think I got off the hook? Because I. I kind of blamed you. But I did say immediately I was speeding or was.

0:13:30 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, well, no, you took responsibility for speeding, but then you still blame somebody else for speeding, so. Okay, we get the point, though. Well, you already said you did that. But blame will only make your life worse.

0:13:46 – (Kathy Gray): It will make it worse.

0:13:47 – (Steve Gray): Here’s what people will do to you when they see that you are a person that is a victim and that blames everybody your whole life. It’s never your fault. They will never trust you or be comfortable with you because they always wonder, am I next in line? If you blame them, you’ll blame me. So I’m just going to pull back. And so a lot of people who play the blame game, they have trouble making relationships.

0:14:12 – (Steve Gray): They feel like “I don’t feel that loved. I don’t feel that nurtured.” Well, you probably aren’t. They’re not nurturing you. They’re not loving. They stand up because I don’t want to be next. So we have to be very careful that we take responsibility for our portion, and we’re not doing it because other people deserve it. We don’t forgive people because they deserve to be forgiven. Forgiven. We deserve people because we have to forgive to stay healthy.

0:14:38 – (Steve Gray): We can’t blame. We have to let loose. But we’re doing it to stay healthy in every area, I think physically, mentally, emotionally, so we can have great relationships. And I would tell, you know, in our church, all the people we deal with all the time, for all the years, you know, and somebody will say that. I’d say to him, I said, you know what? Just let me take the blame for, you know, like, maybe I said this and they misunderstood or whatever. And I said, well, that’s not what I meant. You know what?

0:15:07 – (Steve Gray): Just let me take the blame for it. You know, I can do it. It’s okay. I don’t Have a problem with that. And I’ll go, I’ll say, I’m sorry. I didn’t explain that right. Well, when we get down to the real thing, I didn’t do anything because I was just helping somebody along. I didn’t even do anything. But you know what? It’s healthy for me to say, not make that person feel bad about it. I’m going to make that person. I’m going to let them off the hook and say, you know what? I probably didn’t explain it right. It’s my fault. But I’ll. And I. And I know that’s being a great peacemaker, too.

0:15:35 – (Kathy Gray): Blessed are the peacemakers and showing a lot of humility and a lot of caring for other people.

0:15:42 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And if you don’t know, sometimes it’s okay.

0:15:44 – (Kathy Gray): Take the blame.

0:15:45 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, it’s okay. And it’s a big, you know, we’re supposed to lay down our lives and we can do it. It makes other people feel better. And if you don’t, if you’re not dealing with the pride thing and you’re not dealing with, you know, all this emotional junk going on inside of you, and you have the peace of God. So I told somebody, I might have said it last week, too. Remember, I said to somebody, I’m so rich in God, I can.

0:16:06 – (Steve Gray): And then you fill in the blank. You know what? I’m so rich in God, I can afford to forgive people. I’m so rich in God, I can afford to say, you know what? Just blame me. It was my fault. I misunderstood and go on. I’m so rich in God, I have all this stored up for me that.

0:16:24 – (Kathy Gray): Now, you know, that’s the way you help the other person. Then to become rich in God, you remove that barrier. And I’ve seen many times when you have said, all right, I’ll take the blame. And then I’ve seen the person or people that are trying to cast blame anywhere and stir up a lot of trouble. I’ve seen them melt under the love of God and melt and the. And the intensity. And the fire just goes out like that when you. When you extend that.

0:16:54 – (Kathy Gray): And then those people are freed to move on ahead spiritually, also to grow in grace.

0:17:00 – (Steve Gray): And the bottom line is. You almost said it earlier. The bottom line is we all are going to have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. Right. Sort of. That we all going to have to stand before the Lord and be judged for what we did. You know, right or wrong, good or bad. But when we do it, we got to Realize there’s not going to be anybody there to blame, not even God. Jesus will be there. But I wouldn’t try blaming him.

0:17:24 – (Steve Gray): Right. And there’s not going to be a big crowd of people around. There’s not going to be. You’re not going to be able to say to Jesus, well, you know how. You know how I feel. No. You know how bad they treated me. You know how I feel. Know what I mean? And Jesus is going to say, nope, I don’t know how. Because I said, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. And I laid down my life and shed my blood for you.

0:17:43 – (Steve Gray): And all you folks listening, I did all that. And so you’re not going to be able to go to him and explain hurt feelings or pride or. Well, you know, I just didn’t think, you know, because I had a kind of a rough growing up or whatever. So it’s not going to work better. Do you like this? I like the scripture judge. If you judge yourself now, you’ll not be judged. Well, we’re still going to have to stand in that position.

0:18:10 – (Steve Gray): But what it means is if you’ve taken all that stuff before God, before you get to Jesus at the very end, that he’s not going to bring it up again. He doesn’t remember as far as the east is from the west. He remembers no more. Take care of it now. So when you stand before him, it’s as far as from the east to the west. He remembers it no more. And he won’t have to bring it up. Cause you brought it up. You took responsibility before God, before you had to stand before Jesus and give an account for what you did in this life. It’s just a smart way to live. And it’s so freeing.

0:18:43 – (Steve Gray): Well, we have a few more things you mentioned. Self-reflection. Name a couple of things that can help you break free from it. Just name a couple of things.

0:18:53 – (Kathy Gray): Okay.

0:18:54 – (Steve Gray): You made a list for us?

0:18:55 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah. Yes. Self-reflection. You need to look at yourself, your own self again. Be honest. Don’t pull the wool over your own eyes. And then we’ve already said several times, then you take personal responsibility and accountability. And then third, you forgive. And you know, unforgiveness is like a yoke and it connects you to the blamer or it connects you to the bad incident. But that forgiveness is a letting go and it’s not feelings. Forgiveness is not feelings.

0:19:28 – (Kathy Gray): Forgiveness is an act of faith where you spiritually, mentally let go of a person because in unforgiveness, you’re holding Them the blamer to yourself. So self-reflection, forgiveness, let me see what else. And that humility, I’ll tell you what, humility, that was Satan’s downfall. And we don’t want to live like that. We want to grow in humility and not rise up with somebody does try to point a finger at us.

0:20:00 – (Steve Gray): Let’s see Kathy, I’ve got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Golden Blame statements that people use. Well, of course that all narrowed down to one. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not. I mean blame is part of our growing up, isn’t it? Like we get, it’s in us, right? Even when you’re in kindergarten or first grade. You taught kindergarten you first grade. And how quickly a kid can be called something. It’s not my fault.

0:20:27 – (Kathy Gray): Well, you know our two little granddaughters age two and three, they, they’re learning and growing and they have magnificent parents and. But I watch it when I play with them, you know, she made me do it. No, she made me do it. She took it away. So that’s why I hit her. So I mean it does start very small.

0:20:44 – (Steve Gray): Very small. Yeah, here’s golden. We got some golden statements. I call them that. Here’s the most famous one of blame of all. The dog ate my homework, right?

0:20:57 – (Kathy Gray): Poor dog.

0:20:57 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I used a lot of the golden ones going to school when I didn’t have something. Did you know I told you once. I’m trying to end this podcast because stay on the subject but now we’re telling stories. I was with my brother, senior in high school and I’d missed. Been late for school a lot. And when you get there, if you’re late too many times, they give you a pink slip or yellow slip or something and you have to go to the principal’s office. You’re late again.

0:21:24 – (Steve Gray): And so my brother and I, we were late again. So he’s with me and so he’s asking, he’s standing there, I’m standing there. We both got these slips. We had to go to the principal’s office. And so he just stands to my brother and he’s like, he was a freshman, I was a senior or something like that. And he’s just standing there taking whatever they say, you know, just whatever they say. And I thought I’ve got so many times and what am I going to do here?

0:21:47 – (Steve Gray): So our principal’s name was Mr. Findley. I said Mr. Findley, let me tell you what happened. Okay, this is classic now. I said we were going along and we Were driving to school, and we stopped at a light, and a man rolled down his window and signaled me to roll down my window. I rolled down my window. Now, this actually happened. My brother can tell you. He was there. And I said. He rolled down my window and he said, listen, you slow down.

0:22:15 – (Steve Gray): If you don’t go late to school, I’m going to beat up your brother. I’m going to beat up your brother when we. If you’re not late to school. And I said, Mr. Finley, I just couldn’t bear the thought of my brother getting beat up. So I had to come to school late. And guess what happened? He just laughed. He shook his head, laughed and said, go on. Go on to class. Sometimes a humorous blame may work, but eventually you’re going to have to take responsibility. So the dog ate my homework. Let’s keep going here. Okay, how about this one?

0:22:49 – (Steve Gray): I see this one a lot. I was just following orders, you know, with us, you know, we have a Preschool, Montessori school, We’ve got an Academy for K through 12, and of course, our church, many other things. And so I have a lot of. We have 50 employees, and we got a lot of things going on during the week. And I’ve seen it over and over where somebody does something and somebody else says, well, that’s.

0:23:13 – (Steve Gray): That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it. And they’ll say, well, that’s the way Pastor Steve wants it. And I never even talked to him, but they’ll get it out there. So I was just following orders. That’s the way somebody wants it. So it’s not my fault. All right? This is the super spiritual person that escapes. The enemy is really attacking me today. The enemy is really attacking me today. You know, so you get.

0:23:40 – (Steve Gray): a flat tire that you ignored buying a new tire because you’re too cheap or you went to the movies and ate out. Now you don’t have enough money to buy a new tire. Now you got a flat tire, and you’re going to blame the devil for it. Say, the enemy is really attacking me today. There’s another super spiritual person. You basically don’t want to do something. And so you say, I don’t think that’s my gift.

0:24:00 – (Steve Gray): I don’t think that’s my spiritual gift. And so I don’t. Basically means you just don’t want to be responsible. You don’t want to do something you don’t want to do. It needs to be done. You don’t want to do it. And so we need to be responsible for every. We’re responsible for everything. And in the kingdom of God we’re responsible anyway. That’s not my gift. And then the most famous at all, other than the dog ate my homework, might come in second.

0:24:21 – (Steve Gray): But number one, the number one blame game phrase that you can get is the devil made me do it. And that’s going to keep you in bondage the rest of your life. You’re never going to be happy in a marriage. Your marriage partner is never going to be happy with you. Your kids are going to be unruly. They’ll be starting to blame because all of a sudden, you know what? If you blame everybody, get ready, your kids are going to blame you. They’re going to be 30 years old and 40 years old saying, let me tell you why I’m such a mess is my parents or my church or my boss.

0:24:53 – (Steve Gray): So today’s lesson is what? You have to get out of the blame game. Take responsibility. You’ll be so much happier. You could be rich in God. I can afford to be wrong once in a while and I don’t have to know everything all the time. Anyway, go and tell your friends about the podcast and subscribe. And pick up my book,  If You Only Knew: A Guide for the Clueless Generation. The new book comes out after the new year so there’s a new one coming. Get that one. It’s going to help you a lot understanding what’s going on in America today. Thanks Kathy, for being with us today. We had a good time talking about the blame game. Till next time. Bye.