Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

"How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."¹

I have worked for a number of years in divorce recovery and relationship workshops. I have repeatedly found that a big percentage of people who have gone through divorce or have impaired relationships primarily blame the other person for the relational breakdown.

Many of us don't like this but the reality is there are no innocent parties in any divorce or broken relationship. Both parties are contributing something, even if it is being too weak, too passive, too submissive, not having healthy boundaries, being immature, too overdependent or codependent, etc., etc.

A lady I was dating a number of years ago said to me, "Dick, are you angry at me because I've been divorced three times?"

I answered, "Angry? No. Frightened? Yes!"

"They were all jerks," she stated.

"Why did you marry them then?" I asked.

In actuality, we are as sick or as healthy as the people we are attracted to—especially romantically. We can tell a lot about ourselves by the people we are attracted and drawn to. If we want to have healthy relationships, we need to see what we have contributed to any relational conflicts in the past and do what we need to do to become healthy people. Only healthy people find and have healthy relationships.

Our conflicts can be God's wake-up call to motivate us to take stock of our life, face our character issues, take responsibility for overcoming our personal weaknesses and grow to become healthy persons.

As long as we play the blame game and blame others for our problems we will B-LAME!

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, help me never to play the blame game but in every conflict help me to see exactly what I am contributing to the situation, and lead me to the help I need to overcome my character weaknesses. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Matthew 7:4-5 (NIV).

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