If you have kids you’ve totally heard this before.
“Who broke this table?”
“It wasn’t me!” “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it.”
Recently I came downstairs as the girls were wrapping up breakfast, and cereal was ALL OVER THE FLOOR. It was like Cap’n Crunch & Crunch Berries napalm went off and spread throughout the kitchen. “Girls, who did this?!” I was livid. I needed an answer. Someone needed to own this.
“It wasn’t me.” our oldest quickly responded.
Waiting a bit to think it through, “It wasn’t me daddy” our little Roxy said quietly.
“Then WHO did it?! Anybody want to answer that?”
“Um, it just happened daddy,” Roxy stated with total confidence.
Now the phrase “It Wasn’t Me” isn’t just some catchy Shaggy song title, it’s something I’ve heard all too often and unfortunately found myself at times being quick to default to.
– I didn’t like the response I got from my wife. So I think “Well, it wasn’t me who communicated bad.”
– The church did something we didn’t like. “Well, wasn’t me who changed. They did.”
– Things didn’t get handled properly at work with our team. “It wasn’t me.”
– Conversation turned to an argument. “It wasn’t me who made it go like that.”
– Fall into an old habit that isn’t healthy. “It wasn’t me… it just happened.”
Let’s face it. We all have epic fails in life. Things we say, the way we handle things, the tone in our voice, the blind spots we don’t know about, and… we need to own it. And it didn’t just happen, we drifted over time to a place of not owning whatever “thing” it is in our life.
Maybe we’re drunk on our own kool aid.
Maybe we’ve surrounded ourselves with people who don’t hold us accountable.
Maybe we need more people to love us enough to say, “You’re not being loving. And I love you, but love God more & I love you enough for you to be upset with me about trying to help you. You need to make a change and I want to help you.”
When we get people in our lives who love us enough to help us, we usually learn how to say, “It was me” a lot more.
Things to ask yourself:
– What instances this last week or month should you have owned and said, “It was me”?
– Who do you need to go back to and ask for forgiveness?
– What’s holding you back from owning some of the shortcomings and faults in your life?
– How can Forefront, your friends, your Gel Group help you in this?
