Reacting Vs Responsible Living
“The price of greatness is responsibility” says Winston Churchill. “Just looking at the word responsibility provides a rather simple but profound understanding. We have the ability to choose our response – response- ability. Unlike the animals, man is made in God’s own image. Consequently, we are not driven by instinct, nor must we give in to our natural impulses. We are able to decide how we will respond to each situation, person and urge that we face. We cannot change the fact that life is tough, but we have been given the capacity to choose our attitudes and actions, enabling us to rise above our circumstances” says Kurt D Bruner in his book Responsible Living in an Age of Excuses.
Richard Niebuhr mentioned three important qualities of responsible people: 1.They are able to initiate action. 2. They are able to make genuine response to the situation they are in. 3. They are able to account for their actions. Responsible people make intentional choices; their choices are not driven by a genetic code or a predetermined fate. They often take time to understand the context and the situation before they choose their response, remember they are not reacting but are responding thoughtfully. Reaction is instinctive and does not leave room for fresh or new thought.
Responsible people make intentional choices; their choices are not driven by a genetic code or a predetermined fate. They often take time to understand the context and the situation before they choose their response.
Lewis B Smedes says “Some people are slaves to a script; they always react the same way to crises – as if their reactions were predestined. If they fly off the handle, they say that they have no control over their tempers; someone else makes them angry, they never make themselves angry. They act as if every infuriating situation called for the same reaction. Responsible people do not let prewritten scripts determine what they do; they truly respond to each situation, and they are able to give different responses as one situation differs from another.”
Responsible people do not let prewritten scripts determine what they do; they truly respond to each situation, and they are able to give different responses as one situation differs from another.
As Christians sometimes we misuse the label “God’s will” trying to make God responsible for many of our choices. I truly believe that God has a plan for our lives and seeking God’s direction is very important in every aspect of our life; however that does not mean that we are relieved from our own responsibility of thinking or using our renewed mind. I believe that God gives each of us everything necessary to make wise decisions and expects us to make a responsible decision within a given situation. Since we make the choices within the freedom granted to us by God I believe we are rightly held accountable for the direction taken or choices made.
One of the great blessings of living a responsible life is that you will never need to argue with people defending your choices or decisions. After all, you are only claiming that your choice was an appropriate thing in the given situation, unlike the legalists who claims that there is an exclusive right way of doing everything. Most Pharisees of Jesus’ day were legalists they knew all the laws, rules and regulations but many of them lived irresponsibly. They were often slow to understand the situation and quick to quote from the rule book. Matthew 12: 9-14 talks about an incident where their laws and rules restricted them from helping a person in need. While the Pharisees were bound by the legalistic mindset, Jesus chose to respond to the need of the person, he focused on making a difference instead of reacting to their challenge.
We can create laws, rules and regulations for different situations of human life (that is why when you walk into a lawyer’s office you see a collection of numerous volumes of books with various laws); however we will never be able to create enough rules and regulations for all the possible situations of human life, that is why it is more important to develop a sense of responsibility in a person than to just produce a person who knows the rules and follows them blindly. A responsible person is one who not only knows the rules of the game but also knows the exceptions to the rules. One of the dangers of over-emphasizing blind obedience to rules is that we will raise a generation that has no sense of personal responsibility.
A responsible person is one who not only knows the rules of the game but also knows the exceptions to the rules. One of the dangers of over-emphasizing blind obedience to rules is that we will raise a generation that has no sense of personal responsibility.
– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –
