Passing The Buck
One warm spring day—when you would have rather been anywhere than in math class—your teacher looked you straight in the eyes and asked you where your assignment was.
You squirmed uncomfortably in your seat, ransacking your mental library for a plausible alibi, until you came up with the following excuse: “My dog ate it.”
You didn’t have a dog. And even more important, you didn’t have a finished assignment for an imaginary canine companion to consume.
Still, you offered up your lame excuse. And as you did so, you prayed to whatever God you could imagine that your teacher would not hear your heart beating like a bass drum or see the rivers of sweat rolling down your face.
“Well,” she said, “I expect you to do the assignment over and bring it in with you tomorrow.”
Twenty-five years later you found yourself on the hot seat again, only this time it was your boss demanding to see the quarterly sales report for the next day’s meeting.
For a split second, you considered resurrecting the dog excuse but thought better of it.
“I’m just waiting for a final number from our Hong Kong office,” you said, hoping your boss would believe you this time.
U.S. President Harry Truman had a handwritten sign on his desk that read: “The buck stops here.” But for many of us, passing the buck is more our style.
After all, passing the buck is a popular human pastime that traces its origins to the dawn of human history Adam, the first man God created, was also the first man to avoid taking responsibility for his failures.
After God created the earth, he told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. “You must not touch it, or you will die,” said God (Gen. 2:17).
But the serpent tricked Eve into eating. Then Eve persuaded Adam to eat. This was the beginning of sin—a tragedy theologians call the fall of humanity.
When God asked Adam and Eve what had happened, they tried to fool the Creator of the cosmos with a flimsy con job.
“Eve gave it to me,” said Adam.
“The serpent deceived me,” said Eve.
Things might be much different today if Adam had said, “God, I confess. I messed up. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t, and he paid the price. So do we.
God, help me own up to my mistakes and apologize to those I may have hurt.
Help me take responsibility for my sin instead of endlessly passing the buck.