Responsibility

Now there’s a big word! But we can only get our lives around it as we tackle it ‘bit by bit’ as they say. I don’t roll over one morning and say suddenly “I’m a responsible person”. No, it is a proven commodity along an often drudgery laden landscape of little choices effecting a far more vast universe than what we are aware of at the moment. What does it matter we say, 100 years from now, no one will know. I wonder if Adam and Eve ever had that thought? That thousands of years later their lives would stand such scrutiny. What chagrin, what horror. It was just a bite! But a huge glitch occurred in a moment of seemingly insignificant irresponsibility.
We run from responsibility because we lust after things that cause us to be irresponsible. We want our cake, and to eat it too! We love the lap of luxury, we embrace hollow things in our pride of life. Our insane grasp for fame and fortune, to be like God’s leave us standing at a very selfish pinnacle where we never like to be caught. After all, in the cool of the evening, when responsibility came calling via the voice and presence of God, Adam and Eve pointed their fingers at each other to assign blame anywhere but on themselves. We have mimicked their saga with deft skill and the accomplishment of time practiced methods. Perfecting the skill of passing the buck, the blame, the shame to anyone but ourselves.
But no matter how deft we become, there is one inescapable judge of character and motive, who sees beyond our excuses, our stories, our lies. Who looks into our very souls and declares with a reckoning that cannot be denied that we are guilty. You, me, responsible! What can we say then? We are made to own our stuff, we will. But alas, there is a nobler way. It’s Jesus Christ. The all responsible, never wavering Savior who took our moments of irresponsible behavior upon himself that we could be set free to follow His example of true responsibility. Of laying down our lives for one another. Did you ever stop to think about who you might have to lay your life down for tomorrow, and how you might have treated them differently today. Or how about that someone who might just have to lay down their life for you tomorrow, how are you treating them today. How well do we ever really know each other and what we are capable of? This I do know, scripture teaches us that we are responsible for one another. And I am convinced we will never be bigger than what that rite of passage earns us. God knows you, He really knows you! He is holding you responsible, and how many times are we leaving Him holding the bag?
Determine today to do what you should do. To choose the right next step. To act the right way, to speak the right words. To be responsible. Jesus told us that we would have to prove ourselves in the little things first. Because that is the way responsibility is developed. He understands our inherent weakness, muscular dystrophy of the soul. And that without daily exercise, our will atrophies, and responsibility slips, as does our grasp on life. God help us to exercise the gifts He has endowed us with. To be responsible, to own this word. To be what we were created to be. Creatures who choose responsibly, who choose with that responsibility God! Blessings. Pastor Doyle