Day 29

Scripture focus: Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng. Proverbs 7:26 NIV

If someone wants to victimize you, it will require your full cooperation.

Figuring out what is going not quite right is absolutely NOT the same thing as ascribing blame.

Once I was teaching a lesson on family systems, and some guy at the back of the room stood up and shouted in utter frustration, “I get all this! Tell me how to fix it!”

He was sincere but the way he glared down at his wife led me to intuit that perhaps he was playing the blame game.

I replied, “Go first.”

“What?” He squinted back at me, cupped his ear and tried to believe that he had misheard.

“You heard me. Go first. Be a man. Fix your part in the problem. See what happens.”

I never saw that guy again. Maybe he got busy and went first. Maybe he decided I didn’t have a clue.

When it gets right down to it, the only change we can ever truly control is the changes we make ourselves.

“A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular, you don’t find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more interesting.” J. M. Barrie, from the dedication to his first edition of Peter Pan.

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