Yesterday I came across a news story (link below) casting pity at the feet of former NFL showboat Terrell Owens for some financial troubles he is now facing. You see, Owens spent fifteen years as a talented wide receiver in the NFL during which time he earned a total of $80 million; however, his career ended after the 2010 season and at 38 years-old he is now broke. This is a sad reality that many former professional athletes face, but many of them can at least look back over their lives and honestly admit that they just wasted it. Huge houses, expensive cars, trendy clothes, and five-star dining can add up over the years and have claimed a number of victims. However, Owens refuses to accept any personal responsibility with regard to his current trouble.
No, instead of manning up and admitting fault for not carefully managing his own affairs, Owens casts the blame at the feet of his agent, his financial advisers, and the four women with whom he had children but with whom he never even maintained a relationship much less married. Instead he is satisfied to wallow in the mire of self-pity and look disparagingly at everyone around him. His position is that it was everybody’s fault but his own.
It’s easy to read such a story and be sickened by the outright arrogance displayed in such an exchange, but in reality do many people not do the same? We live in an age of irresponsibility coupled with unaccountability. Everybody’s making mistakes and nobody wants to accept the blame. We rely on others to endure the pain of our own personal falls and feel perfectly justified in passing the buck. And if this was not a big enough issue in secular matters it is a dynamic that has shifted into the spiritual realm. In the beginning Adam displayed such an attitude when after being confronted by God for his sin he said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12). Like Adam, our sins are often classified as someone else’s fault and we assume that it shifts blame away from us. However, the Bible still says, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10). In the last day there will be no shifting blame or passing the buck. I will be held accountable for what I did regardless of whoever else might have been a factor in the ordeal. Any sin for which I might be held accountable will be my fault, no one else’s. We must begin now, though, to discipline ourselves according to the reality of personal accountability because when we stand before God our sins will not be everybody else’s fault, but will be our own!