Blaming God for your own foolishness is … foolish!

We aren’t all that good at learning our lessons from life’s experiences.

In fact, it’s not too uncommon for us to “double down” on our own foolishness. For some of us, it’s literally doubling-down on our stupidity, such as described in this story reported by The Lowell Sun …

BOSTON – A former Chelmsford man charged with trying to hire a “hit man” to kill his estranged wife has been convicted of trying to hire someone to kill the undercover state trooper who had posed as the hit man, according to a federal prosecutor.

Andrew S. Gordon, 53, has been convicted of trying to hire a New Hampshire gang member to kill the state trooper and another man, both witnesses in the state’s case against Gordon, U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a news release Friday.

The gang member was actually another undercover officer, according to Ortiz. She said Gordon offered the officer $15,000.

… Gordon faces up to 50 years in prison and a maximum fine of nearly $1.3 million when he is sentenced May 20.

One writer offered the following commentary regarding Gordon’s story:

Some people just don’t learn from their mistakes. Perhaps that’s because they don’t really see them as mistakes, but as failed attempts at a brilliant plan. A plan that’s so brilliant that it’s worth trying again. They think to themselves, “If I just iron out a few small wrinkles in my plan, it’s going to work this time.” But the fundamental problem with the fool is his lack of moral teachability. The result is the fool can’t be made to recognize his own foolishness, so he is doomed to repeat it. He doubles down on stupidity.

Scripture describes such arrogant stupidity this way: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness” (Proverbs 26:11).

It’s usually about this time, when we’ve wrecked our lives and have no way out of the mess we’ve made, that we do yet another foolish thing:

“People ruin their lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord,” Proverbs 19:3.

One thing we humans hate is owning our own guilt, a reality author Kent Crockett captures in this personal story …

One day when my son Scott was two years old, I heard him crying. I went into his room and my daughter Hannah, who was four, was there also. A plastic bat was lying on the floor.

“What happened to Scott?” I asked.

Hannah answered, “He hit his head.”

“On what?”

She pointed toward the bat on the floor and said, “The bat.”

“Where was the bat?”

She said, “In my hands.”

Instead of Hannah admitting she had hit her brother with the plastic bat, she blamed the bat as being the instrument that made negative contact with her brother! Such foolish thinking isn’t just the reasonings of children, it’s the thinking that comes from sin and has marred humanity since Adam and Eve wouldn’t own their choices for sin …

“’Who told you that you were naked?’ the Lord God asked. ‘Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What have you done?’ ‘The serpent deceived me,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I ate it,’” Genesis 3:11-13.

When finally we just can’t find someone else to blame for our sin, we’re capable of resorting to getting mad at God over our own foolishness! Even though we may be so incredibly foolish to attempt such a thing, that doesn’t work, either …

“And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, ‘God is tempting me.’ God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death,” James 1:13-15.

Our own foolishness, our own bad decisions, our own choices for SIN, can be blamed on no one but ourselves. And we will never be able to move beyond our guilt and foolishness until we first confess our foolishness, and then repent of it. Without these necessary and required steps, you can absolutely count on one thing: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his foolishness.”

Are you angry at God about the harm you’ve done to yourself and others through your own foolishness? You’ll never gain forgiveness, healing, and help for a better tomorrow until you’re willing to own your foolishness by confessing and repenting of it.

Have you done that? Or are you choosing to double-down on stupidity?

Scotty