The media has been especially noisy lately, hasn’t it? Blaming some and pitying others. But instead of discuss that, I thought we should talk about something that we, as individual people, can do about it: practice Personal Responsibility.
Personal Responsibility would seem to be a lost art. It teaches that we are responsible, or accountable, for our actions. Good or bad. Personal Responsibility dictates that when we fail at something that we step up, own it and take the consequences without blaming others. On the other hand, personal responsibility also means that you reap good benefits for good efforts!
It’s Not Fair
This has been a very unique year. Never before have I known schools to close and parents to teach at home. To be honest, many were thrown into the lifestyle I grew up with. As the year and the pandemic went on and news of graduations and proms not happening began to circulate, I heard a lot about how the children didn’t deserve this. They deserved a graduation and celebration like what they had been anticipating.
And I get the disappointment. I get the inconvenience and the letdown. It is definitely unfortunate.
But don’t let anyone get on a binge of telling you what you deserve – or what others deserve. Telling someone what they deserve breeds ingratitude. It doesn’t inspire excellent behavior.
Rather, comfort the disappointed and challenge them to find a silver lining. As long as God is King and you are His child, there is always a silver lining! Many of them, in fact!
God is just and merciful – but not fair. And what a gift it is that He isn’t fair. If He was a fair God, we would be lost. But since He is just and merciful, we can find hope and refuge in Him!
With this in mind, we shouldn’t encourage ourselves or others to look for the “fair” in a situation. Praise God things aren’t fair. God guides His people through triumph and tribulation. We learn our best and most meaningful lessons while going through trials. And I am convinced that we have the utmost opportunity to grow closest to God when going through these tough times!
You Reap What You Sow
A topic we have discussed recently, but perhaps deserves revisiting: You reap what you sow.
Give God your best and serve others well and God will reward your efforts. Complain, blame, and have a victim mentality and you will reap the rewards of that too.
Here’s an interesting thought: you don’t have to be who you are, you can be who you want to become. Now this doesn’t mean that if you want to be a billionaire that you can become a billionaire just by pretending. But rather, challenge yourself in your minds eye to be the best version of yourself! Don’t like who you are? It’s up to you to change it!
Your actions have consequences.
Now read that again: Your actions have consequences!
Change your actions, change your life! It is that simple! You reap what you sow. Sow life, kindness, service to others, etc, and you will experience the benefits of those efforts!
I pray that this fills you with hope and a real desire to hold yourself responsible and accountable for your actions. Don’t fall for the blame game, but rather inspire another to take hold of their responsibility!
Until Next Time!
Hope.
PS. I shared a similar, but different, thought along these lines awhile back: https://www.theamericanlady.com/2018/02/28/you-have-to-be-lovable/