Blame & Discipline

Yesterday I talked about the need for true self discipline. To really restrain and punish, train and direct ourselves. That our sin nature seeks to satisfy a variety of appetites and we need to punish it. This led me to think about blame. Ever have a bad action/reaction based on your lack of discipline? Let me give you an example, a few years ago, I was involved in a minor fender bender. Well, my car didn't think it was mild since its fender got bent all the way back through the radiator. It happened as I was going just a little too fast (barely) and following just a little too close (but not close enough to be considered tailgating), and not paying quite close enough attention (I was looking ahead to the turn I needed to make), when all of a sudden the guy in front of the guy in front of me slammed on his brakes and stopped. The guy in front of me did the same, as did I. It had just been raining, the road was wet, I slid right into the guy's trailer hitch. No damaged to his vehicle, but I never drove my car again. So whose fault was it? Obviously the guy in front of the guy in front of me who stopped real quick. The guy I hit blamed him. I blamed him. He didn't stick around to accept our blame, but that just made it easier to blame him. Case closed. Or is it. If I had been following behind by 2 or 3 seconds instead of 1.3, if I had been watching more closely and not going 2 over the limit, I would not have hit him. How often do I average over my lack of discipline because I can find someone else who I can blame. They really did help cause the problem, so I can quietly and conveniently overlook the fact that either my action or reaction helped make the whole thing possible. Why discipline myself when I can point that finger elsewhere? God doesn't care what anyone else did when He's talking to you. Do you feel you've gotten on the wrong end of something. Feel misused, abused, accused, misunderstood, ...victimized? Maybe you should stop blaming and start looking at your own discipline, even if the other person seems to have a log in their eye and you only have a splinter. Discipline applies to splinters too.