I’ve been mulling on the concept of blame for the last week. When an accident happens or something goes wrong that we didn’t intend, why do we feel such a compulsion to blame ourselves or others?

Someone dies, for example, and we analyze every move we made and what we could have done differently. If only… If only… A person can go mad in an “If only” loop. The fact is we all have to die someday and it happens in God’s best optimal timing for that person. Very few of us ever intentionally want someone else to die. We don’t set out to cause someone’s demise. Our choices were not premeditated to do harm. Why do we blame ourselves?

Even in smaller things, we blame ourselves and others. The most miserable people I know are stuck in blame. It immobilizes them. The bandwidth consumed by blame and shame retards their growth and makes them less effective. Blame can kill creativity and it makes some people bitter, angry shells of who they once were.

The burden of blame makes some people victims who turn over their personal power and become slaves to their own bitterness. Others become so self-loathing that they don’t think they have anything to offer, so they don’t step out in positive ways.

If you’re stuck in blame, give it to Jesus. And if you take it back, give it again and again and again.

Better yet, if you really want to let it go, seek to know Jesus. Ask Him where you stand with Him. I was stuck periodically beating myself up for past actions that still have ramifications on people I love. I felt I had repented of them and wasn’t doing them anymore, but anytime I saw the effects of them on others I felt bad. Then one day last year I had a deep desire to know where I stood with God. Was there anything I had not thoroughly dealt with?

I knelt down and gave all my sins and mistakes to Him and pled to know where I stood with Him. The answer was profound and real….more sacred than I will share here. But bottom line, He assured me He had forgiven all those things long ago when I asked Him to. He told me He had work for me to do, and me rehashing old stuff He’d forgiven was a waste of time. He told me to let the past go and to get to work on the good He had for me to do in the world.

Now when someone from my past brings up something the “old me” did. I honestly admit that those actions were not good and that God has shown me a better way. On the rare occasion a twinge of old guilt wants to emerge, I remember Jesus telling me it was all forgiven and to move on to bigger and better things. Nothing can bring me down when I think about Jesus and what He told me.

If you’re stuck in blame or shame — yours or someone else’s — ask Jesus to help you let it go. I promise you He will if you really want Him to.

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