One of the most useful tools in my interpersonal toolbox is the one that says: “my response is my responsibility.”  I have found it can be much too easy to blame the way I am responding, or reacting, onto someone else’s actions. Maybe someone ticks me off, and instead of doing something (prayerfully) about it, I let it go because I am busy and I don’t have time to poke about in my feelings, or sort out your not-so-nice attitude toward me. What’s inside me, that has been stored up – so to speak, and it will eventually come out … usually at another person!

Unfortunately that kind of neglect buries any difficulties – it does not clear them up. Buried things have a tendency to rot away and stink! The next time you do something that ticks me off, I will have a less tolerant attitude toward your actions. If you keep on bumping into my ever increasing irritation, eventually – I could feel justified to snipe back at you. However, there is no ownership in those actions. I have unrealistically, farmed out my responsibility for my emotions onto you, because I am expecting you to pull up your socks and stop ticking me off! 

The only person in charge of the way I respond is ME! I would be far better off handing my irritation over to the Lord, and asking Him to help me with it, instead of stuffing it down inside me … making it a time bomb waiting to go off. I don’t have to say anything to you unless He says I should… I simply talk to Him and ask Him to adjust my inner ‘dial’ so that I am not so sensitive to the argy bargy stuff that happens in this life. I ask Him for more love and less impatience, and could He please show me what is actually going on inside me?

Babies are a perfect example of uncontrolled emotions. They cry and crank, mainly because they don’t have any language for how they feel. So someone comes and picks them up to soothe them. We have a society full of people who do not know how to handle their own emotions and soothe themselves. They keep waiting for someone else to do it, or they will throw blame everywhere. These people shrug off their own responsibility to manage their anger, rage, whinging, weeping, irritation and plonk it onto the people who are annoying them. It might be the wife and kids, it could be the government, or a neighbour, but I can guarantee that if you ask them, it  will always be someone else’s fault they are angry, full of rage, or sad etc. It will never be their fault. 

This life has bad things in it. People do truly dreadful things to each other and they are not only not sorry – they’ve let the aforementioned storm inside them build up to gigantic uncontrollable levels. We need to learn, with God’s help – how to manage our own responses and reactions. 

Repentance and ownership of my own flaws and faults must be like breathing. The bible clearly tells us that we don’t have to feel bad, or even less than somebody else;   because we know Jesus died for ALL our sins. And I’m not better than them either. I am not perfect myself, and, despite my feelings, I am not as excessively fragile as I think.

God put a fighter in all of us – we are designed for transformation, so we will have to fight our own human inclination to retaliate. I need to use His weapons of warfare. Those weapons I choose will transform my inner life so that it is not a litany of other people’s faults playing over and over and over again. That’s why I read the Bible, I am looking for Him, plus my own sin, not yours!

Today I want to look at those two men who were crucified right alongside Jesus. One man was bitter, the other became bigger. That second man was also suffering but he made hard choices at an incredibly difficult time. BTW, they both deserved their punishment.  

Luke 23:32, 33: “Two others, both criminals, were led out to be executed with Him. When they came to a place called The Skull  they nailed Him to the cross. And the criminals were also crucified—one on His right and one on His left… … 39-42 “One of the criminals hanging beside Him scoffed, “So You’re the Messiah, are You? Prove it by saving Yourself—and us, too, while You’re at it!” But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into your Kingdom.”

Ownership of our own faults is imperative to becoming a mature Christian. We must transform our self-talk by digesting the bible. Instead of dismissing ourselves as innocent, we need to remind ourselves that there is nothing that happens to us that is not Father-filtered. We need to ask for more FAITH to overcome our human inclinations. 1 Corinthians 13 is not a dream … it is a reality, ready to enter our lives, if we live prepared to press in and value the tools He has given us. If I truly want to be free I will deal with ME. Bye 👋