Each of us is responsible for what we become in life
Dear friends, I greet you today in our column “Daily Word for Spiritual Strength”.
Today, I want to emphasize that each of us is responsible for what we become in life.
Once I read a story about a man who used to be a lawyer but degraded himself and became homeless.
On a famous beach in London, a minister met a grubby tramp and had a conversation with him. During this conversation, this man took a frayed photograph out of his pocket, with himself as a good-looking lawyer on it. This tramp showed this photograph to the minister and said, “It is me before I found out that my companion had embezzled our financial resources.”
Afterwards, he said that the stroke of this detection pushed him into drinking. As a result, such a lifestyle led this lawyer to become a miserable tramp in London.
Unfortunately, this man’s life was changed by his own decision. The stroke in his life caused a chain reaction of wrong actions that led him into a miserable condition. If the lawyer responded right to this stroke, he would possibly turn his obstacles into an opportunity. But wrong actions allowed the power of destruction and deterioration into his life, letting him sink into a valley of failures.
Every one of us is subject to a constant process of change and transformation from the moment we are born until the moment we die. The question is not whether we want it or not because, in a way, this process is inevitable. Hour by hour, day by day, year by year, we change – for better or for worse.
Different forces and life pressures that surround us change us in a certain way. We stand amidst these forces as independent people and, by our authority to choose, we decide what way we will change. Even if we do not make any decisions but let our lives flow their way, still our indecision is a decision itself. Such a person has made a decision not to make decisions.
Taking responsibility for decisions we make in life, no matter what the circumstances are that lead us to these decisions, is one of the most important lessons that we can learn in this life.
Human research shows that men and women, for different reasons, try to escape responsibility for what they are, and they blame other people for their failures.
Such opinions lead a person away from the necessity to find out the real reasons for their sorrows and failures.
I often say that other people might be blamed that you are low but nobody else can be blamed that you have stayed low.
Take the responsibility in your hands and continue with your life.
Today’s human civilization avoids responsibility, and people use various creative kinds of excuses for it:
- Many blame the stars. As if orbs rotating in the space could decide the destiny of the free moral agents!
- Others blame their subconscious and assert that everything that happens to them mostly cannot be subjected to our control.
- Some of them blame the environment and declare that a person is like an animal in a cage and that all of their actions depend on their attempts to adapt to the surroundings.
- There is also this category of people, who try to justify their actions and, keeping off responsibility, declare that they do only what everybody else does. They put all the guilt on other people.
What an absurdity!
There is only one way out – take responsibility yourself for everything that happens in your life.
Remember: It is not of significance what happens to you, but your response to the circumstances is the essential part. It determines your happiness and success, and it will always be a matter of your choice.
May the Lord spare you from an irresponsible life!
Talk to you tomorrow!
Pastor Rufus Ajiboy
