A Real Kick in the Pants

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.” – Theodore Roosevelt

It’s called “playing the blame game” and some people have elevated it to an art form. Nothing – and I mean absolutely nothing – is their fault… or at least that’s the way they look at things.

As a child, it was always their brother’s or sister’s fault when they got into trouble. And in school, either the teacher was mean, the test wasn’t fair, or the other kids distracted them when they were trying to concentrate. The same goes for why they didn’t make the varsity team or get voted Prom King or Queen.

At work, that promotion should’ve been theirs, but the boss always liked John or Jim or Sue or Betty more. It had nothing to do with their coworkers arriving early, staying late, and working harder.

The bottom line is if you look hard enough, you will find an excuse for pretty much anything and everything that has gone wrong in your life. But if you want to be 100% honest, the person looking back at you in the mirror is often the one to blame.

For instance, during my 35 years in prison ministry, I heard virtually every excuse under the sun for why a man was serving time behind bars. Ironically, those excuses didn’t come from the inmates themselves, who were usually brutally honest about the reason(s) for their incarceration. Instead, it was their relatives, their lawyers, or politicians wanting to score points and win votes who would cite their poor upbringing or their underprivileged background.

The worst excuse I ever heard – and frankly, continue to hear – is that institutional racism is the reason why so many minority men are imprisoned. The truth of the matter is that black men, who comprise just 6% of the general population, commit 63% of all violent crimes in America… and that is why they are overrepresented in the criminal justice system.

I’m not saying that racism doesn’t exist, but in many cases, it is just an excuse used to mask an underlying problem such as out-of-wedlock birth, which is the leading predictor of future incarceration and lifelong poverty… and currently stands at 72% in the black community. Without a father in the home or a positive male role model in their lives, the children of single moms are far more likely to take drugs, join a gang, drop out of school, and engage in criminal behavior.

Likewise, the reason why most people are overweight is that they consume more calories than they burn off. In debt? Try living within your means, even if it means buying a smaller house, driving an older car, or delaying that expensive family vacation. Or yes, paying with cash instead of credit.

As they say in most 12-step programs, the first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem… and we all do. It’s called sin and the One and Only Cure is J-E-S-U-S.

“As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’” Romans 3:10 (BSB)

• Rev. Dale M. Glading, President