So people have got all kinds of reasons why they're like they are: well it was my teachers, you don't understand, that first year at school - oh well I was at high school ... terrible! Listen, I am hearing blame. You're putting the problem on someone else. Maybe they did contribute to it, maybe they did some very bad things; but at the end, if you don't stop blaming, you remain powerless and helpless, and you remain a victim of what happened. We have to make decisions, what we'll do about the hand we've been dealt by life. Here's another one: people blame the government, or they blame the church; you don't understand, that last church I was in - well the pastor or the leader or the... I'm hearing blame, because you're ascribing the reason you are like you are, to someone else or something else. You have to recognise the reason you are the way you are, is because of the choices you've made; and if you made bad ones, you can make better ones - and even better ones, see? So we blame everyone; we blame our background. Well you don't understand my background, I never had the education - woops! Blame.
There's heaps of people succeed in life without education. Come on, you've got to think this one through, and you'd be amazed. Well I had some bad experiences, I was abused. A lot of people in life are abused, it's a terrible thing, incredibly wounding and hurtful - but that does not determine your future, how you respond does. It's not what happened to you, its how you chose to respond, is the key. My lack of opportunity, I didn't have opportunity! Listen, everyone's got opportunities; what did you do with the ones you go? So you'll find in our culture, and I want you to listen for it this week. As people talk, I want you to listen for the sound of someone who is losing, blaming someone else. They will blame a person, or they will blame circumstances. How come you were late here? Oh well you understand, the traffic. Yeah, you're blaming something else, and so it goes on. You'll find everywhere in life, people want to blame, so I want to get into this whole thing of the Blame Game.
Let's have a look first of all, see how God designed us. Genesis 1:26-28, God said: let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion. Verse 28: God blessed them, and said to them: be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth, subdue it and have dominion - so we are designed for dominion. Here's one of the greatest gifts God gave you; He gave you a will, an ability to make choices. You choose what you do with your life. He gave you a free will to make choices, creative choices, so you have desires in your heart, and you will choose whether you are creative in fulfilling the desires, or not. With the capacity of free-will choice, we have consequences. God said: you can eat all of that fruit and that'll be fine, but eat that one you've got problems; so God gave us the ability to make decisions, the ability and right to be free in choosing what we do. But consequences, we have no control over them, they're what happen after you've made your decision.
So God has given us two things; one is, He's given us a free will to make choices; two, He's given us a creative ability, He expects us to use to solve problems. Notice what He said to Adam and Eve: subdue, have dominion. That meant there were some things out there that were not right, that had to be overcome; and they had to face the problems that were outside them, and creatively think how to deal with them. That's what God expects of us, all the time. We can pray to God, and we do. We can ask God's grace and help, and we do, but there's a part He expects us to play. For example, in Genesis 2:19 God had created all the animals. That was His part, and He brought all the animals to Adam, and He said to Adam: here you go Adam, I've created you for dominion, so go give them all a name. Oh, I'll call that one an elephant - and so he went and - now that's not an easy task to think up a creative name for all the animals. Imagine if you had to go here, and give everyone here a name - but all the animals, that's a big challenge.