It is becoming more and more clear that personal responsibility is quickly fading. It used to be that if something happened in a person's life, the responsibility rested on their shoulders, and they admitted it. It doesn't appear to be that way in America today. Now, it seems that whenever something goes wrong in some one's life, there has to be someone else to blame besides the person who is involved.
People claim that the problem is their genetic makeup, their seemingly uncontrollable circumstance, or some other cosmic influence out of their control that guides their inability to make wise decisions. I understand that these are broad strokes that I am using to paint this picture, but I'm sure you can partly agree with what I am saying.
Let me use an example from my own life. When I used to work as a manager at my former employer, we always had a 7:00am meeting on Monday mornings. It was every Monday. It was always at 7:00am, and we always had people who showed up late. The excuses that people came up with for why they were late ranged from the believable- 'traffic was so bad' to the lies " I had to scrape the frost off my windshield" (when the person parked their car under a car port)
Here's what the excuses lacked- personal responsibility. Here are some good excuses that are truthful and paint a more adequate picture of what truly happened.
1. I chose to sleep in later and hope that traffic wouldn't be as bad as it is every other Monday for the past year, but my guess was wrong, so I was late.
2. I waited until the last minute to do my report and by the time I got to it the night before, I realized it was too late to call and ask for help, so now I'm going to say that I didn't understand the assignment.
3. I don't care about being on time. I leave at the same time everyday regardless of weather or traffic conditions.
4. I didn't plan the night before, so when I woke up at my regular time, I realized I didn't have a clean shirt or socks and couldn't find my paperwork, so I was late.
There's always an excuse, the question is does the excuse match up with personal responsibility, or does the excuse place the blame on someone else and their apparent power over you?
Let me drive the point home with this article- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101028/ap_on_he_me/lt_brazil_mcdonald_s_obese_manager Read it and ask yourself who is responsible in this story. I'm not saying that there are times when someone else is responsible for your malady, but in my summation, more often than not, people refuse to realize who is really at fault in their life.
Challenge the excuses in your own life today. The excuses about the things that you do or don't do. The areas of your life where you blame someone else for your circumstance. Then do this- declare that it was your fault. You did it, and then choose to make other decisions. Or at least be truthful about where you are at in life and admit who did what.
Am I being a bit harsh? Maybe a tad bit- but here's the deal- if you want to see powerful change in your life you have to go after where the problem is, and usually I find that the problem starts with me, not with someone else.
Here's the best part- when we truthfully admit our faults or admit our shortcomings to God, and ask for forgiveness His work begins. When we don't admit our ownership over our situations, and blame someone else, we never truly heal or move forward in our lives. We just simply pass the blame to someone else, hoping that in some way our life will be different.
Own up. Fess up. Ask for forgiveness. Move on.
Be blessed
pastor mattwww.faithandvictory.com
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