Ridding our Lives of Blame

3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

(New Testament | Matthew 7:3 - 5)

I do believe that this verse of scripture is the key to happiness.  This morning while I was saying my prayers I was thinking about the need for all of us to repent of our own sins and to humble ourselves and take responsibility for them and to give up constantly blaming others for whatever goes wrong in our lives.  My mind opened to this scripture and the understanding of it’s great importance.  Our frustration or pride or insecurities so often inform our actions and reactions, our judgments and perceptions of others.  We blatantly or subtly shift the blame to others to account for our own frustrations, weaknesses, failures and decisions.  This is such a universal pattern in both large and small ways and it keeps us from greatness in our lives. The act of blaming others is a severe impediment to our progress and it blinds us from what we can do to move forward, to alter our situations and to just be happy.  It is Satan’s lie that accepting our own faults and failures as ours and taking responsibility for them will make us miserable.  In actuality, it empowers us and frees us and allows us to not be victimized by the actions and choices of other and ourselves.  We victimize ourselves when we do not accept responsibility, forgive, forget, move forward in truth no matter what happens around us.  We need to own up, embrace our own sins, acknowledge our weaknesses and come unto Christ and work with Him to have our hearts changed in whatever way is needed. Blaming others only sets us back and damns our progress.