Me or the Circumstance?

Often times, during the dark spots in our lives, we wonder what's to blame for the emotions raging inside of us. Often times in the middle of the dark, we see it as the circumstances surrounding us; the lamp that broke or the friendship that failed. However, later in life we look back and, more often than not, see that the dark spot was due mainly to an attitude we had or our outlook on life.

Especially in Christian circles we're encouraged to never place blame on the outer but on the inner. It seems the trend now-a-days in this great nation of America is any dark spot is a spiritual issue. Spiritual leaders and desciplers like to pick apart poor souls going through their dark spots finding ways to prove it's their lack of faith or something missing in their spiritual walk. But is it ever just the circumstance?

We see countless times in the Bible that Satan is a deceiver, the enemy, even a prowler (1 Peter 5:8). Is it so unfathomable to believe that he would use circumstance around us to create our dark spot? I think almost everyone would agree with me.

I'm not a theologian, I can't debate or defend or exegete till the day's end. All I know is dark spots exists; they're real, they're deep, and they're painful. Why do we add on the pain and guilt of a "spiritual" failure? Are we not human? Are we not prone to wonder and make mistakes? But when the phone never stops ringing and you feel like your home life is falling apart, can your spiritual walk really be to blame? I look to the example of Job who, by definition, did nothing against God (Job 1:8). Yet Satan was allowed to rain pain, suffering, and loss into his life. Job was judged by his friends saying he must have cursed God in some way, yet Job had not. Job sat in soot, scraping boils off his skin. Even the example of Christ headed to the cross; in the days and moments before his suffering, He Lamented to God to take this cup from Him (Luke 22:42).

I do think it all comes back to our response to the situation. How do we handle the dark spot? Where do we turn to when dark and twisty starts to take a hold? Why do we harp on spiritual failure when a person is going through a hard time in life? Not every person has a deep dark secret they are keeping. Sometimes Satan just wants to deceive and make us loose.