More Lessons from the Sea Shepherd

In my last post, I told you about my newest guilty pleasure: Watching the "Whale Wars" show on Friday nights to make fun of the crew and leadership of the Sea Shepherd. These people are the ones that even Greenpeace doesn't want around - literally.

On last week's episode, the crew tracked down a Japanese whaling vessel and started the harrasment. The captain, Paul Watson, asked for two volunteers to board the moving ship in order to provoke a diplomatic emergency.

Two such idiots were found and the harpoon ship was boarded (I still think this was an act of piracy and these guys deserved to be shot or thrown overboard). Once on board, Watson began making calls to the Australian government declaring that two of his crew members were being held hostage on the Japanese ship in Australian waters. Unbelievable! You can't fake that kind of irrational stupidity!

It always catches my attention when people start shirking their own responsibility and think that it makes everything alright to point the finger at someone else. The Sea Shepherd crew actually wanted the world to believe that these men were being held captive (again, another good reason to throw them overboard).

For the last month, I've been preaching about stewardship, and particularly how our finances play a role in that stewardship. We live in a world full of people that are hurting financially. Debt is at a significant high, foreclosures are on the rise, and the courts are riddled with bankruptcy hearings. What's everybody's response? To blame the other guy.

I'll make no bones about it - lenders deserve some of the credit for the situation that we're all in. BUT: Nobody ever made someone else take out those loans. Nobody forced anyone to buy a two million dollar home when all they could afford was a $300K one. Nobody required you to use the 18 credit cards that Chase and American Express so kindly sent you.

Whose bad decision was it? Think about it...

We have allowed our belongings and our wealth define us and give us security rather than relying on the abundance of God. Remember Adam and Eve? God GAVE them everything in the garden to use as they wished. They decided that it wasn't enough and struck out to gain for themselves.

We will not learn from our mistakes if we don't admit that they're our mistakes. Blaming others simply shifts (optimistically) the responsibility and destines us for repitition.

Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent - they all faced consequences. Whether we're making poor decisions now and blaming them on others or we're boarding other people's boats and blaming it on the Japanese, none of that changes what the facts are.

Confess your sin, repent of wrongdoing, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The pain of self-realization is fleeting, but the agony and consequences of denial are hard to rid yourself of.