responsibility

The headlines on AOL news # 1 story this morning was:  Flames Rip Through City in the Phillipines:  Firefighters battled a huge inferno:  A huge blaze believed to have been ignited by firecrackers razed nearly a thousand shanties and killed three people in a creek-side slum in the Philippine capital, one of more than a dozen fires across the country linked to raucous New Year's celebrations.

Wow! How do you and I respond to such news?  Do we point the finger at the irresponsible actions that caused the fire or do we pray for those affected?

Webster’s dictionary says: a response is something said or done in answer, reply or reaction. Responsibility is being obliged/ responsible/ answerable/ accountable.  Each of us are only responsible for our own actions. Both the firefighters and the fire starters responded to something.  The one acting on an impulse or suggestion and the other on an obligation/ duty to protect.  But they both responded.  You see from Eve on, Genesis 3:  on, all of human actions are responses to whom we choose to listen to.  Even me writing this… for when I saw in vibrant tones of the general lack of people to take responsibility and GOD bringing instances to me of my own lack of responsibility, my blaming another (pointing the finger), I felt a need/ nudged to share what HE showed me.

In the fire in the Philippines we see 3 kinds of responsibility:  #1 those responsible, by their actions, for causing the fire;  #2 the response of the firefighters to go put out the fire; # 3 our responsibility to GOD to pray for (1) the ones affected, (2) the ones fighting the fire and (3) the ones starting the fire.

Crazy as it sounds, before I turned on my computer this morning and saw those headlines, my thoughts were already on responsibility.  For first thing this morning, I began this new year in the book of beginnings- Genesis.  I was struck anew with the beginnings of sin by mankind.  What struck me was the total lack of taking responsibility for their own actions.  Sure they acted in response, but it was they who chose how to respond.  And so I stopped and starting praying over my prayer list, starting with myself, that each see our own responsibility for our actions, confess it and recognize our responsibility to do what GOD asks of us.  Two texts came to mind that I claimed as I prayed for myself and others..

       Isaiah 57:18-21 the Living Bible  18 I have seen what they do but I will heal them anyway.  I will lead them and comfort them, helping them to mourn and to confess their sins..19 peace to them….  20 but to those who still reject ME they are like the restless sea, which is never still, but always churns up mire and dirt.  21 There is no peace for them 

       I Thessalonians 5:24 Faithful is the ONE who calls you who will also do it.(when GOD asks us to act, HE enables us.) So you see, since we have all the support we will ever need, our responses are our own responsibility.

Are you?

Are you like countless others

Who try to place the blame

For who and what you are upon

what into your life came? 

I hesitate not to tell you

What I have come to see

The blame is squarely on the one

Who has become to be

For you alone chose how you’d meet

Whate’er came down your path

You chose the way that you’d react

And you are the aftermath./     Sharon

From the very beginning of this new year I am asking GOD to keep reminding me that I am responsible for my responses and to help me look to HIM as I pick up the responsibilities HE lays before me.

One responsibility GOD entrusts to each of us, is to pray for all men everywhere I Timothy 2:1.  Since I just got an update on Baby James that he has another fever and that they are taking cultures right now, I will stop and pray for him.  Will you join me?

Hugs, 

Sharon