Who is to blame?

Dear friend

When things don't work out, what do you do? One common reaction is to look for something or someone to blame. It could be a new job, a team selection, a college course, or a relationship.

In the scriptures there is an extended analogy about faith being like a seed. The seed is the word of God planted in our hearts. If the right conditions exist the seed grows into a sapling tree, or an emerging faith in the word. It suggests the original seed was a good one. Picking up at the point of the new tree, the story continues in the Book of Mormon, Alma 32:38, 39.

38 But if ye neglect the tree, and take no thought for its nourishment, behold it will not get any root; and when the heat of the sun cometh and scorcheth it, because it hath no root it withers away, and ye pluck it up and cast it out.
39 Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof.

The plan or desire to get fruit from the tree didn't work out. But it wasn't because the tree was no good. Despite the effort to plant the seed and see it grow into a young tree, that effort or interest or initial care waned. Yet it would not be a surprise if the planter blamed the tree or the seed or the ground or the weather. The normal response is to duck responsibility, to push the failure away from ourselves.

I believe this applies to other situations in life, not just gardening or testing the truth of God's word. When things don't work out the tendency is to look outward not inward. We (try to) convince ourselves it was the other person, it was bad luck, or fatalistically it was "not to be".

I hope when things go wrong we will recognise that there are some trials we bring on ourselves. It might do us good to honestly and humbly check to see if we did all we could. I pray that if we ask "Is it I?", and it is, we make the changes.

Samuel.