Responsibility: July 22, 2011

JULY 22 2011. TODAYS WORD FOR FRIDAY JULY 22, 2011.

RESPONSIBILITY

DEFINITION:

The state or quality of being accountable; a duty; charge; obligation.

SCRIPTURE:

The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me the tree, and I ate.” Genesis 3:12.

KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:

One of the things that we have noticed over the years that probably surprises us the most is that people just do not want to take responsibility. In the work place we very rarely could find a person that wanted to take on a new responsibility or greater responsibility. If a person did show some interest they would want a discussion as to what additional benefits they would receive. It also concerns us that people do not want to take responsibility for decisions they were involved in that turned out to be failures or at least not up to what was expected.

In our home it was sometimes a challenge for us when we would assign regular weekly responsibilities to our children. The responses we would hear from our children would vary. One might feel that another had less to do and another would ask how come “my responsibilities are harder than his or hers.”

We often would have several children involved in the same project. If that project was not completed up to the standards we set, we would regularly hear that it was because one child did not do the job properly. Today most children want to know how much they will get paid before they accept a responsibility. It is a difficult concept to teach to children but they must learn life is not all play and that work is required of everyone and that there is great satisfaction in a job well done.

We gave our children a weekly allowance but compared what children get today the amount we gave was very small. But we never attached the allowance to the work responsibilities. Life comes with responsibilities. Our goal should always be to do our best to fulfill the requirements of every responsibility given or assumed by us whether or not we will be rewarded.

The extent to which people avoid legitimate responsibility is of concern to us. And an even greater concern to us is that there are so many people today that do not accept responsibility for their own actions.

When God confronted Adam for eating the forbidden fruit, he chose to blame his wife and God (verse above). When we have done something wrong or just not done something right, do we always accept the responsibility or do we try to pass on the blame to some else? We have a choice. We can take responsibility and accept the blame and pay the consequence or we can shift the blame to someone else. Children usually look for someone whom they can shift the blame to when they have been caught doing something wrong.

The response, that God wants from us and that pleases Him, is to accept personal responsibility for our actions. It is just not right to blame something else or someone else for our wrongs. We will not grow spiritually until we learn to accept the responsibility for all of our actions both good and bad.

We learned working with many people in office situations and as volunteers that a good test of a person’s character was his or her behavior when he or she was wrong.

LEARNING:

Our memory verse for this week is found in Mark 13:31.

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”

PRAYER:

Teach my family the importance of taking the full responsibility for all our actions. Help us not to sit back when something goes wrong to see if someone else will take our responsibility. Help us to diligently fulfill all of our responsibilities.