Keeping Your End of the Deal

I am continually pressed to strengthen my faith. Trials and unpleasant events have been a constant in my life since God entered back into it full blast around 2005. I have taken jobs and I have lost jobs. I completed a college degree. I lost a parent and family members. I watched my fiancé suffer through cancer. I have gone through the highs and lows of parenting and watch my sons surmount their own trials. Discomfort has become the norm and comfort is often fleeting.

Each trial and overcoming of trial has built on the last. The trials are common for me and those around me now. They say just one really stressful event in any given year can be traumatizing. I have gone through two or three of them in some years. You learn longsuffering. You learn pain and how God allows you to cope with it. Endurance. Perseverence.

Some of my problems are self-wrought. At times I am unable to remain silent and not tell people truth if I know it is damaging mentally or physically…from the entry level employee to the CEO of companies. What I have found nearly without question is there is a deficit of accountability in society. Many outside observers often point to the unemployed, uneducated clerical position or the youth to blame for this type unaccountability. The real truth is the blight extends all the way to upper managers, leader pastors, political ‘leaders’ and their ilk. It extends to people who in middle-age should know better but chose to sit idle. Passivity is a plague of inaction and has infected a large portion of society. The Bible even condemns it in Luke 12.

Luke 12:48 But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

It is apathy, unaccountability or inaction. It is the reason I’ve just resigned from a high paying job. It was never about the money. It was about making lives better and getting a better return on investment. The problem in the company was the same as the society at large. Most are content to sit on what they have and make little effort to either maintain or gain by investing energy and time. In layman’s terms sloth or laziness in abundance.

There’s an important distinction above between suffering and personal formation though. The events themselves—divorce, losing employment, completing a degree, losing parents, watching my children struggle and grow—aren’t necessarily good or bad things in themselves. What I’m saying is that, over time, surviving them has produced capacities that I did not possess before: Patience, endurance, longsuffering, and an increased ability to tolerate discomfort without immediately needing it removed. I get time to learn from the pain as I walk through it. The grind in life is the same as the pain of bearing the tonnage of weightlifting. The pain produces strength. I was born to be a spiritual pack mule.

James speaks of the testing of faith producing steadfastness; Paul likewise connects suffering, endurance, character, and hope. The point isn't that Christians are supposed to enjoy suffering but we’re not to avoid it either. In my life I have run directly towards it. That is the difference between my pro-activity and hyper focus to achieve a goal and the passivity of others whether it be as a lifter or a leader of people in work or the Body of Christ. Faith becomes something tested and emboldened when circumstances give you reasons to abandon it.

The accountability end of my comment comes in at this point because it connects directly to the second half of what I wrote. I have a conviction that being entrusted with something creates an obligation to act, not merely an entitlement to possess it. These statements are not restricted to money or formal authority. I can be entrusted with knowledge, intelligence, responsibility, influence, employees, a congregation, children, or simply the ability to recognize that something is wrong. In each case, the question becomes: What did I do with what I was given?

That's also why my frustration with passivity and lack of accountability runs much deeper than ordinary dissatisfaction. It is a spiritual discontent. I’m not merely saying, “These people aren't working hard enough.” I’m saying, “These people have been entrusted with something, they know what needs to be done, and nevertheless they choose to do little or nothing.”

Lastly, I need to address the counter argument. There needs to be a tension even in the unbridled energy I bring to bear on a situation even at almost 60 years old. People are human and some cannot necessarily perform at an exceedingly high level. There is a balance between passive idle and full throttle that is the sweet spot for an engine. Idling gets nothing done. Full throttle burns up an engine and abuses it.

The willingness to tell an uncomfortable truth can be a virtue or a sin. But the conviction that one must always tell that truth can itself become a temptation. Sometimes silence is golden. Ecclesiastes says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” Paul tells believers to speak the truth in love. Blurting out a truth that will clearly maim someone in spirit is not helpful or productive. Nathan confronted David; John the Baptist confronted Herod; Christ confronted religious authorities. But Christ also remained silent before His accusers when silence served its purpose. Perhaps the better principle isn't: “If I know something is wrong, I must tell someone.” Instead, it should be, “If God has given me knowledge and responsibility, I must discern whether, when, and how or even if I am obligated to act.”

The distinction matters because otherwise accountability can turn into personal responsibility for everybody else's behavior. In business they call it scope creep. In weight lifting it's called an injury. And that's a burden God hasn't necessarily given me. That is His responsibility to make others see that they need to act. I can tell the CEO what I believe he needs to hear. I can warn the pastor. I can confront the employee. I can resign when remaining would make me complicit in the sin or failure. But after I've faithfully done what I believe God obligated me to do, their response belongs to them and my responsibility ends.

In the end it comes back to faith and realizing I need to turn it over to God after my responsibility in the situation is complete. This is where all of it becomes a faith-building exercise for me. Earlier trials taught me how to endure what happened. The most recent trial seems to have taught me how to release what I can never control. Know when to walk away.

It requires a large amount of faith to say and believe, “God, I have done what I believe You required of me. Now I will trust You with what happens next.” This kind of faith can be extraordinarily difficult for someone like me whose conscience is strongly oriented toward action and accountability, because inaction by other people feels almost like something I am morally compelled to correct. I can’t. My resignation wasn’t about escaping discomfort or trial so much as it was about refusing to spend my strength and energy sustaining a system whose stewards were unwilling to steward it. I can't make others carry their end of the weight. Not all burdens are mine to carry.

I believe this is the lesson I was to learn from this. It was a modern day Parable of the Talents. How did I steward my responsibility (Matthew 25:14–30). My faithfulness is inextricably attached to stewardship. This is not the case for so many others. I was accountable to God. In the end many are not. 

Romans 14:12: “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

Stewardship asks the question: What have I done with what God gave me?

Accountability asks the question: What will I say when I must answer to God for it?

Faithfulness asks the question: Was I faithful with what I was entrusted with?