Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” 1 Kings 17:17-18

If you’ve been around any length of time you’ll undoubtedly know that people like to blame others for things that go wrong. Such was the case with the poor widow that Elijah had been staying with. Her son became ill and as he grew worse, and started to blame Elijah. Elijah took the problem into his own hands and went to heal the boy. Later the woman acknowledged that Elijah must have been a man of God to perform such a miraculous deed.

If you’re like me, you get blamed for things you don’t do. As a teen I was regularly blamed for things I never did (I never got caught in many of things I did so it all evened out). But often we can get irritable and nasty when we’re accused of things we’ve not done. Sometimes the accusation is not worth fighting, but many times it is. Still, our reaction to being falsely accused speaks volumes about our inner character. Do we immediately go on the attack? Do we crumble inside and not do anything? Do we seek to solve the problem?

Christians throughout history have been accused and blamed for atrocities they’ve never committed. And yet, Scripture warns us that this will be the case. What does it say? “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Matthew 5:11-12

There’s our answer.