Accountability

I feel increasingly drawn toward this value. I remember growing up in the church in Young Womens and reciting the value statement, "Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Choice and Accountability, Good works, and Integrity." (now virtue too!) There has been an unfortunately large use of the word, "free agency" in the church which really confuses people and leads them to less than effective thinking patterns. (such as "I can do whatever I want, ha ha")

My goal is everyday to think of being 100% accountable for my actions. Do I really want to answer to the Savior for this or that action/word/thought? What would I say if he asked me what I chose one thing over another? Goodness sakes, I don't want to feel embarrassed standing in front of a perfect being and feeling like I coulda/shoulda/woulda repented more often of whatever mistake I instead chose to keep repeating. Not only that but I want to choose to live like Christ would live if he were here today.

For each of us that represents various challenges. Because we all have unique strengths and weaknesses, it takes recognizing our own challenges and to refrain from judging others on the same path as us. Perhaps our strength is their weakness and what they need is a little understanding and guidance. In this case we need to do so lovingly.

We all can recognize the light of Christ within each other. We don't always see it in ourselves. Therefore I think we ought to tell each other about this light we see. Empowerment is the result of this type of encouragement. When I was really quite new to blogging I had a good example of someone who would always leave me nice, positive, and thoughtful comments.

This woman currently writes on this blog on Sundays. Because of her early example I decided that I wanted to be that person. I wanted to be the person who always made other people feel good by leaving them comments as often as I could. Occasionally I let myself get worked up over people who haven't left me any comments and think that they deserve not to have any comments. But really that is not what Christ would do. He would look far beyond his own need of love and see the needs of others - they need comments too.

That is just one example of encouragement, or charity, a Christlike attribute. There are so many others. Over the next couple of weeks I encourage my faithful bloggers to write about a Christlike attribute. Maybe it will be your strength, or a strength you see in someone else. I can't wait to read what all ya'll write about!

With love,
Trish