Finding Someone to Blame

This week I had someone who was once involved in my church tell me that it was my fault that their family no longer went to church. I asked this person to explain how it was my fault and they said to me that I "gave up" on them. I reminded this person how many times I'd been to their home, visited in the hospital, sat over lunch with them and in many other ways tried to pour into their lives and to help them all. I was told that when they needed me most, I was not there. I asked when this was and I was informed of events that took place long after they had left the church where I pastor that I knew nothing about. I was told that if I cared, I would have known and been there. I reminded this person that they had not only left this church but also trashed the church, me and my family verbally as well as on social media and informed others that they had left and advised others to have nothing to do with me or my church and then posted numerous photos and stories about their new church, that was a "real" church and they had found their new home . The person's response was that if I was any kind of pastor that I would have pursued them, even if they did push me away. I told this person that if it somehow helped them feel better about the condition of their life, to go on and blame me, but that was not going to "fix" anything in their lives or marriage, that what really needed to happen was they, as a family, turn their hearts back to God. That did not seem to be what this person wanted to hear either. This seems to be a real problem in America today. People do not want to be responsible for themselves and someone else always has to be at fault. It may work on social media, but that is not going to hold water when we all stand before the judgment seat of God.