“Support without accountability promotes moral weakness; accountability without support is a form of cruelty.” ~ John Wesley
We all need support and accountability to grow spiritually and to be our very best. If parents provide a home for their children to live in, but there are no rules or expectations for the house, it will lead to a house of chaos and dysfunction. The children will grow up immature and maladjusted in life. They will struggle immensely to live life on life’s terms. On the other hand, if the same parents provide a home for their children to live in, clearly communicate their expectations, enforce the rules, but offer no support to their children who will struggle to live up to their many regulations and expectations, the children will grow up emotionally, mentally, and spiritually challenged, and left maladjusted and feeling all alone.
You may be reading this devotion this morning, having grown up in a household similar to those described above.
How can anyone recover from such an upbringing?
God provides a pathway for healing and forgiveness. There are no perfects homes or parents. The vast majority of behavior exhibited by families, especially in public, is a facade. If you do happen to witness gross dysfunction by the family in the public square, you can only imagine the dysfunction going on behind closed doors. Our culture breeds this kind of behavior and sets up the family dynamic to present themselves to the world as if everything is okee dokee. If you grew up in this type of home, the chances are high so did your parents.
As people pursuing a spiritual life, we mustn’t repeat the same behavior in our lives. Our children, family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, employees, etc., need our support and accountability. They also need accountability and our support. Support and accountability need each other, one without the other breeds weakness and cruelty.
How can you be a better supporter and accountability partner to the people God has strategically placed in your life?
Who can you invite into your inner circle to be your accountability partner and help support your spiritual development?
God of support and accountability. You support us in all ways and yet hold us accountable for our actions. You have stern commandments for how we should love You and others, but yet provide grace and mercy because of our fatally flawed state. Thank You for Your patience and consistent desire for humankind to live along spiritual lines and by the code of love and service in all of our affairs. Please remove the poison in our hearts that resulted from our upbringing, and help us to extend the same grace and mercy to our family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc., as You continue to extend to each of us every day of our lives on earth as it is in heaven. In Your Spirit and Name, we pray these things. May Your will not ours always materialize, now and forever. Amen.
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