Edging God Out Through Victim Mentality Series

Edging God Out through Victim Mentality

I have spoken here about Edging God Out. We have examined several ways in which we Edge God Out. Pride, Fear, Busyness, Unforgiveness, A sense of Entitlement ae some of the ways in which we Edge God out of our lives.

Today we are going to examine another way we Edge God Out.

Many of you know the nursery rhyme of “Old McDonald had a farm” isn’t it? Well there is epilogue to the story. One day Old McDonald and his wife decided to retire from their farm. So all the farm animals got together and decided to give the McDonald’s a nice farewell. They were grateful to all the couple did for them during their life time, so each started to volunteer to give gifts to the McDonald couple. The Hen excitedly told, I will provide an egg to them for the rest of their lives so that they can have some great breakfast everyday. The Cow joined in said, I will give them their daily quota of milk. The Sheep said I will provide enough wool for them to keep them warm during winter. The horse said that it will give them a ride every day to wherever they wanted to go.. and so on went the offers. Hearing all this the pig was silent and becoming tense every moment. So the others offered a suggestion, hey pig, why don’t you offer to provide ham and bacon every day for the farmer couple? The Pig said, hey that is not fair. You are all speaking about contributing passively, and my contribution needs to be active and is not repeatable. You get the picture isn’t it? Are there times when you have felt like the pig in this story. Have you felt that life demands more from you than from others? Have you felt that God demands more from you than from others?

Let us start with a self-assessment. I would like us to honestly react to the following statement with Never, sometimes or often. (Adapted from the list provided by Pastor Pat Damiani , Faithlife Sermons, 2017)

1. My first reaction to a setback is to blame someone else for what happened.

2. I feel like no matter what I do, things really aren’t going to change for me.

3. I spend a fair amount of time thinking about past failures and mistakes.

4. I’m always so busy with work and the things I need to do to survive , that I just don’t have the time to do the things that I’d really like to do.

5. I often find myself beginning my thoughts with phrases like “I can’t…”, “I’m no good at…”, or “I’ve never been able to...”

6. When friends offer advice, I usually answer, “Yes, but…” since they can’t possibly know how difficult my situation really is.

7. Conversations with friends are often about how hard my life is.

8. I never get what I deserve.

9. Other people are a whole lot luckier than I am.

If you are able to answer “Never” to all the questions listed above, then you are a saint and don’t need to hear the rest of this message. If you have answered mostly in the “Sometimes” category, then you are normal. If you have more than two in the “Often” category, then you might be suffering from what psychologists call a victim mentality.

So that is the behaviour we would like to focus on today. Edging God out through victim mentality. The statements given in the self assessment explain what Victim mentality is all about. Let us look at a biblical Character who had such a victim mentality.

Let us go to 1 Samuel Chapter 13 for this, we see here, that Sau had been made the king. He has been chosen from the smallest of the tribes and give the highest position in the Kingdom. He had every reason to be grateful and to do as the Lord willed. Instead, we see him demonstrating the victim mentality very often. In the Chapter 13 we see that he gets impatient to make an offering and attack the Philistines. And when Samuel comes and asks him his reaction is classic.

1 Sam 13:11-12 (ESV) 11 Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “When I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines had mustered at Michmash, 12 I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord.’ So I forced myself, and offered the burnt offering.”

Saul was simply not taking any responsibility for what has happened. He blamed the people (they started scattering) , he blamed Samuel (You did not turn up as promised), and he blamed the situation (Philistines had mustered). Finally he rationalises his action, saying that he was “forced” to act. He was basically saying that he was the victim here. This incident reveals several aspects of victim mentality. Not taking responsibility, blaming others, rationalising the act etc.