Consider this: You are driving down the highway. You are cruising at a speed you think is appropriate based on where you are going, the speed limit and how much time you have to get there. Now everyone going slower than you is being ridiculous, right? There “Sunday drivers”, slow pokes. And everyone going faster than you is a crazy maniac, a speed demon, and going to get everyone killed. For most of us, the speed of our life is just right and its everyone else that is going too fast or two slow. And that is our human condition. We assume that: I am right and everyone else is wrong.

We love to judge and blame others. But here the truth: we can’t blame our way to freedom.

If we want freedom, then we need to stop blaming and start taking ownership.

But ownership is hard. We have to learn how to take ownership. Its easy to blame. No one had to teach you that. Blame comes naturally. Just think about children.

Joy Kate has been into gymnastics and that brings about bumps and bruises. But I always notice that when she gets hurt and I ask her what happens she says something like, “The balance beam made me fall.” Cause blame comes naturally.

When my girls fight and someone gets hurt and we come running in to ask what happened, the first thing out of their mouths is, “She hurt me. She said something mean.” Because blame comes naturally.

So, we spend time telling them to stop blaming the other and tell us what they each individually did. We have to train them to take ownership for their actions. And if they both do that, we can always work out the problem. You see, as long as they each blame the other, the fingers are always pointed away from themselves and the disagreement continues. But it is amazing that when one says, “I said something mean to her,” then the situation begins to diffuse because the other feels validated and can move on.

Like children, we think we minimize our guilt by making the other person look bad. The truth is that blame puts up walls. But the thing which takes down the walls – which clears the path to freedom – is ownership, that is, taking responsibility for your life, for your situation, for your contribution to a situation. Once you begin to take responsibility for your own stuff, you earn respect from others, you are able to take steps towards changing things, and you are no longer a slave to the actions and effects of others.

So while blame is an obstacle that comes naturally, ownership is part of the process towards freedom that we have to learn.
http://hoodmemorial.org/sermon/ownership/