Understanding the difference between blaming God and trusting God is as yet, for me, a rather difficult task. I can think/say the same words in my head and in one instance be trusting Him and in another instance be blaming Him. Perhaps I can illustrate this with an example from my mission.
There is a phrase that the people of Costa Rica love to use and which all missionaries detest: "si Dios quiere." Translated it means "if God wants" or "God willing." When Paul left Ephesus he told the saints there "I will return to you again, if God will." In Spanish, you can guess what that says: "si Dios quiere." Here I believe Paul was saying "I would like to come back and visit you again, but I will only do it if it is God's will." In other words, I believe when Paul said "if God will," he was expressing that his trust in God was greater than his own hopes or desires. This is not the common use of this phrase in Costa Rica!
Whenever missionaries visit a home they obtain a commitment from their investigators, be it to read in the Book of Mormon, pray about it, come to church, etc. Almost every time an investigator would commit, they would tack on the end "si Dios quiere." It was used as full licensure to excuse oneself from any commitment. This practice blatantly blames God for one's own choices. There is no trust here! None whatsoever! It is an act of trying to give our agency back to God and telling Him "here, have this, I don't want it! I have no desire for that kind of responsibility. I'd much rather blame You or others for everything." How insulting that must feel considering the price paid to provide us this gift!
So bringing it back to our culture, when something doesn't turn out how we hoped, do we sometimes think or say "well, I guess God just didn't want it that way," or "It seems God had another plan"? (I think the question mark is supposed to go on the inside of the quotes, but that's a punctuation rule I've not come to terms with yet. I also love the Oxford comma, for what it's worth. SQUIRREL!) This sounds like a virtuously motivated desire to trust God, but is it? Might it possibly be us rationalizing that we are giving up, or that we weren't as fully committed as we'd like to think we were? Such an assessment requires a strong dose of self-honesty, sincere soul searching, and often some help from heaven*. For me personally, I find that sometimes I am trusting Him, more often I'm not sure, even more often I am blaming Him, and most often I don't even notice what I'm doing at all.
Given how poorly I understand my own self in this matter, it should seem absurd that I would judge others on the same. Yep... totally absurd. I try not to, but I struggle. So in my efforts to not judge, I choose instead to project my own experience on everyone else since that's at least more subtle. (Now I will justify my choice to project -- just want to make it obvious what I'm doing here.) I don't think I am alone though in getting caught up in blaming God for the results of my own folly.
Oh, life! You present so much more opportunity to learn than I feel the capacity to hold! I hope someday I might learn to discern clearly in those moments when I seek to blame God vs trust Him.
* Wouldn't President Monson be proud!
