This year I have begun to read the bible from cover to cover. If you have never done so (and even if you have) I would encourage you to join me in this journey. I have found that reading the bible straight through gives me an opportunity to see things that I normally would have overlooked. The most recent nugget of wisdom that I received while reading has to do with blaming others for things that are clearly our own fault. This can be seen in the life of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy and Numbers when God told Moses to speak to a stone so that the power of God would cause water to spring forth for the Hebrews to drink in the desert. God told Moses to speak to the stone but instead Moses struck the stone. This caused God to tell Moses that he could not enter the "promised land" because he had been disobedient (OUCH!). After this disappointing experience Moses gets to get a glimpse of the land but never gets to experience the joys of going there. So what does the leader in the faith do? How does the man who has personally spoken to God handle this? How would you have handled it? Probably by doing the same thing that Moses did...by blaming someone else. Time after time in Deuteronomy when recalling the situation Moses says that it is because of the Hebrews that he could not enter the promised land. As I read I was thinking, "Excuse me Moses but what about the rock? What about the rod? What about the disobedience?" It appears as though Moses was not able to accept the fact that his actions had kept him from walking into something that he wanted to see in his life. In other words, Moses was in denial. He denied any involvement in his present condition and would be forced to spend the rest of his life living in it. What areas are you denying your involvement in? A bad credit score? A bad relationship? A bad temper? Denial is one characteristic that you do not want to copy from Moses because in the Bible it didn't work out too well for him so it probably won't work out well for you. If you have a shortcoming or hangup, if you have made a mistake and disobeyed God just admit it and turn away from the selfish behavior and turn to the mercy of the Savior. Who knows what would have happened for Moses if he would have turned to repent rather than saying, "It wasn't my fault."
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