Certainty

Personal Responsibility

I first began taking personal responsibility for my life and some mistakes that I’d made late in 1994 when I had the good fortune of experiencing some deep life changes. There were many things that happened to me prior to 1994 that helped to soften up my heart that had become hardened through many experiences with personal failure coupled with the realization that there was very little redemptive value in much of the theology that I had been raised with in the church of my childhood. Not the least of these things that happened to me was the reading of Steven Covey’s book about the habits of successful people. Covey’s book helped me begin to believe that taking personal responsibility was essential for success in my life.

Many other people were also reading Covey’s book at about that time and the idea of taking personal responsibility became a popular idea. Some twenty years later I have begun to feel that taking “personal responsibility” for ourselves is taking on an entirely different feel and moving toward something that I call “self determination”. There is nothing more refreshing than when I begin to handle my own affairs with care for others and with integrity; it feels good when I figure out how to take personal responsibly for myself. But when does taking personal responsibity for my past and my present take on the air of self determination? What is wrong with self determination anyway? I think that self determination begins when I try to project myself into a future that is beyond my control. When being saved from the consequences of my sins is no longer a free gift but an obligation on God’s balance sheet because of a contract that promises to pay off in the end if I say or do certain specified things. In order for self determination to survive over time it must demand absolute certainty about many of the tough questions in our lives. But I wonder if that demand for certainty is consistent with the way that Jesus spoke in the New Testament? It seems to me there were many questions that Jesus just plain refused to answer. At other points he answered a question with a question. Many times he just told stories that can be interpreted in different ways depending on my point of view.

This demand for self determination not only permeates our churches but our politics as well. When Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh trumpets the values of our Constitution aren’t they saying that if we do things exactly the way we did them in the past then we would not have the problems we face today? Are they forgetting that our constitution has had to change and be amended throughout the years as we discovered the error of our ways? I am not saying that the church needs to rewrite the Bible as time goes along just as the US has had to ammend its constitution; I just feel like we don’t have all the answers yet and that we need more openness with our theology.

The more that members of the church demand absolutes and certainty around many of the issues we face daily the more credibility the church will lose with those that need the church the most. I pray that I can begin to demand less certainty from the people that I look up to and begin to place more faith in what I believe to be true. One of the things that I believe is that I will have a more enjoyable future if I take personal responsibility for myself today.