“People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord.” (Proverbs 19:3 NLT)
Some days I think I’ve heard it all, but then there is the unexpected occurrence that reminds me that people sometimes do “stuff” that just can’t be explained. It's our own “foolishness” that most often gets us in trouble. It’s a word, an action, a thought, a reaction, a choice, a friendship, a place, a decision, a device, etc., when we’re not thinking about God’s will or the consequences of our actions that can cost us big time. The thing about this verse that stands out to me is that the “foolish” person blames someone or something else for the “ruin” they’ve experienced. They fail to take ownership for their sinful deeds and confront them in a scriptural fashion. Blaming God (or anyone else) for our “mess” is fruitless and fails to bring the healing we need from those experiences. Owning our failures and faults is the first step to overcoming them, as well as the way to forgiveness (cf. Prov. 28:13; 1 John 1:9). Confessing our sins means we agree with God that what we have done is wrong! We don’t make any excuses or look to assign blame to anyone else but ourselves. It includes turning from the sin with the intentions of avoiding the same trap again. Unfortunately, all of us have “besetting sins” (cf. Hebrews 12:1) that “trip us up” more easily than others. These areas reveal an especially difficult “sin pattern” in our lives for which we need to take special precautions to live in victory. The great thing about God’s forgiveness, though, is that it isn’t limited to only one failure in one area of our lives per day, per week, per month or per year. His forgiveness is limitless! Of course, we don’t want to presume upon His graciousness either.
