Take some responsibility

Have you noticed how these days nothing is your fault?

You can blame anyone or anything else, but you don't need to take responsibility for your own actions. For example:
- "I was drunk, I did not know what I was doing"
- "He told me to"
- "That intersection isn't safe - I didn't see the other car"
- "I didn't know (because I did not bother to find out)"
- "The coffee wasn't labelled 'Warning - Hot' and it burnt me"
- "No-one told me junk food was fattening"

It sounds like my children on a national level. All day I hear my kids' voices telling me "She did it first", "He started it". To which I try to reply - "But what did YOU do?" Surely we should be asking the same questions of adults and ask them to have:
- a little common sense
- some acceptance of responsibility for themselves.

Which leads me to an article published last week by our previous Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, in Adelaide Now (also referenced in the Weekend Australian):

...After about 10 minutes as foreign minister I was a little surprised to learn I was "responsible" for miscreant Australians who got into trouble in foreign countries.

No, no, no, don't get it wrong - drug traffickers, drunks, kleptomaniacs and fraudsters weren't responsible for their own stupidity - I was.

It's about time that great nanny in Canberra, the Federal Government, turned around and told people they are responsible for their own decisions...

I don't know whether I am stretching things a little far here - but is it possible that our lack of individual responsibility is directly related to the lack of Christian thought and values in society?

Think for a minute about the 'responsibility' that comes from being a Christian:

1. You realise that you are sinful, and that you are responsible for your sin.

2. You ask God for forgiveness for your sin, acknowledging your own faults and failings.

3. You continue to come before God daily, remembering how you have failed him and thankful for his grace.

4. You try to change and become more godly, all to honour your Heavenly Father - so that you can show him to others.

5. We are called to love God and also to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.


Just a little something to ponder...