"Words fascinate me, as you might imagine. Take the word 'responsibility'. Doesn't show up in a Greek Lexicon, which is rather surprising. But it also does not show up in the Old King James either...meaning that it is a more recent addition to our language, probably emerging about the time of the industrial revolution." emphasis mine
That's a response that Paul Young (author of The Shack) made to a question I asked him on The Shack Forum shortly after the book came out. We were having a conversation about the difference between living with expectancy vs. expectations and the ability to responded as opposed to responsibility. Turns out this has been one of the most transforming changes that has happened in my life over the past couple years.
I was reading back through the thread today and posed this question on the forum also.
Once the industrial and technological revolution began "efficiency" which is all about performance became the driving force in the industrialized world in which we live.
Do any of you want to share any thought as to the effect this has had on us as individuals and as a whole and on the things that are of utmost importance to how God the Father created us to live....in relationship with him and each other?
That's a response that Paul Young (author of The Shack) made to a question I asked him on The Shack Forum shortly after the book came out. We were having a conversation about the difference between living with expectancy vs. expectations and the ability to responded as opposed to responsibility. Turns out this has been one of the most transforming changes that has happened in my life over the past couple years.
I was reading back through the thread today and posed this question on the forum also.
Once the industrial and technological revolution began "efficiency" which is all about performance became the driving force in the industrialized world in which we live.
Do any of you want to share any thought as to the effect this has had on us as individuals and as a whole and on the things that are of utmost importance to how God the Father created us to live....in relationship with him and each other?
By the way, I think this has everything to do with choice and is very important when it comes to living free.
9 comments:
Kent,
I fully agree with you. In fact, just last night, as I was taking a walk, I listened to an older God Journey Podcast in which Wayne and Brad talk about responsibility. I believe that responsibility does on the same "side of the coin" as performance and expectations. After all, responsibility implies HAVING to do something. An obligation-drive act.
Since Papa gave all mankind free will, when the word "responsibility" enters the picture, it automantically sets of a presupposition that one MUST do something, "or else." Thus, in essence, it breeds fear -- that if one does not "do" something deemed the "responsible thing to do", then shame of failure enters the picture.
Responsibility also goes right along with laws and rules. After all, in order to say something is "the responsible thing to do" some kind of standard or rule must have been decided upon or "set" up in which this responsible thing is deemed to "act in accordance" of that rule.
So, yes! I fully agree with you that it's so important to understand that the term "responsible" is actually a "Religiously" based (institution-driven) word and concept.
Since coming out of the System and into the freedom of Papa's Love & Relationship, especially over these past few months, the Holy Spirit has been showing my heart how the term "responsibility" really goes agains the heart of one who is in Relationship with Him. Why? Because all actions we should take, all loving we do is a FREE WILL CHOICE from our hearts. We do these things not out of obligation or we feel "it is the responsible thing to do" but rather it is driven from LOVE Himself living within our heart.
Kent.....wonderful, wonderful question and subject to bring up!! Thank you for this post! I didn't think I'd write this much...but I fully agree with you that understanding the Truth about this subject is essential to living freely in Father Son Holy Spirit's Love!
Blessings,
~Amy :)
http://amyiswalkinginthespirit.blogspot.com
Amy, in light of what we would think of as our spiritual lives it is very important but it also plays into the overwhelming demands that the realm of necessity places on us....that is unless we are learning to live from of it.
The question for me really has become: What is necessary?
In regard to Relationships it's about being available (mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically)living free of expectations and in regards to the demands (which end up being controls) the world places on us, we only do what is necessary.
Here is Paul's answer in it's entirety:
I love this conversation, even in its infancy. Words fascinate me, as you might imagine. Take the word 'responsibility'. Doesn't show up in a Greek Lexicon, which is rather surprising. But it also does not show up in the Old King James either...meaning that it is a more recent addition to our language, probably emerging about the time of the industrial revolution.
New KJ uses it about a dozen times (if I remember, but all in the OT), same with NASB. The more modern the translation (or especially the paraphrase versions), the more it shows up (30 times in the Living Bible). The New Irrational Version likes it too.
Here is part of the issue at stake here, and it is true for both the word 'responsibility' and the word 'expectation'. Both words regress to a static existence rather than an active one. What I mean is that they exist with no reference to time, like the Law...they hang in space, outside of yourself, impinging their heavy presence on your life and dictating choices and actions from 'outside' you. The work of the Spirit is from the inside and continues to be from the inside. It is also moment by moment, and focuses on the present tense. (Having begun in the Spirit, are you now going to be perfected by the flesh?) But what is anticipated by expectancy and by an ability to respond...is a living dynamic relationship in which you hear the voice of Jesus speaking. It is the Word of God that set you free (not as in Scripture, but as in Jesus - not that Scripture may be the avenue through which you are nudged, but not necessarily or essentially). When we are not used to living by His life in us, or hearing His voice, it is easy to revert to something 'outside' by which we can base our performance on, forgetting that apart from Him we can do 'nothing' (no matter how righteous it looks), and whatever is not of 'faith' - this inward, living union - is sin (no matter how righteious it looks).
in recent years, i have contemplated the assumption(?) that god gave us "free will." (is that an oxymoron?) i hear people say it all the time - especially in christian circles.
i'm wondering if that assumption has as much to do with the fact that we are americans, and how that has influenced our ideas about what "freedom" is.
Stacy, I don't think the freedom God offers has anything to do with the freedom people are thinking about who have grown up in democracy. The ability to make a choice to shop at Home Depot instead of Lowes isn't the freedom Jesus is inviting us into.
Those choices are never really made in total freedom because those choices are being influenced by external stimuli....advertising, propoganda, and other thngs.
I fully believe that God gives us the freedom to choose what we want, which I beleive is free will. But that freedom to choose in and of itself doesn't mean we are living freedom.
i think of freedom (as it relates to my present experience of my life in god) as freedom "from" and freedom "to."
in christ, i have been freed from...fear, bondage, etc.
and in christ, i am free to choose love, life, to do good, etc.
Kent,
This post makes me think of George Muller - the orphanage guy from the same period as the Industrial Revolution.
He took on caring for orphans with no guarantees of monetary support. I love the story of how one morning he sat down with all the children (I can't remember how many, but they numbered MANY). There was not a crumb to be found in the kitchen and he had no idea where food would come from, but he thanked God for the food he would provide, knowing God would provide because he was the one who called Muller to care for the orphans.
After he prayed there was a knock at the door and a milk truck had broken down in front of the orphanage, the driver wanted to know if Muller could take the milk that would spoil (before pasteurization and dependent upon ice to refrigerate) before the truck would be fixed.
Then a little later, a baker came to the door to ask if they would please take some bread.
I think that's how God provides and to live in such a state has got to be more blessed than the best 401K!
I just heard a man from Gospel for Asia speak this weekend and he said something that clicked with me. (I tied it into the verses in the bible that say God supplies our needs according to his riches in glory.)
He said that God doesn't need our money, he "owns the cattle on a thousand hills".
When he said that, even though I've realized that particular statement before, there was a new meaning because I thought of George Muller and Hudson Taylor and how millions of dollars went through Muller's hands to provide for the orphans, but whatever was left over after the expenses of the orphanage, he passed on to Hudson Taylor and other missionaries who never mentioned their needs to people but prayed for what was needed.
I think the Holy Spirit moves us beyond responsibility in the traditional sense and invites us into what Oswald Chambers coined as "reckless abandon". I love being in that place but it sure takes an undivided heart and I don't always have that.
If we as a nation or a people could lay hold of the reality that God really is in control and that he really does love us and want to provide for us, it would be heaven on earth!
That's a great story Jennifer.
Here's a quote from Jacques Ellul that is so profound. Ellu (even though he uses the word "responsibility" in this quote :)) understood so well how these things would effect us if we didn't live "awake" and "aware" of them.
"In the modern world, the most dangerous form of determinism is the technological phenomenon. It is not a question of getting rid of it, but, by an act of freedom, of transcending it. How is this to be done? I do not yet know. That is why this book is an appeal to the individual's sense of responsibility. The first step in the quest, the first act of freedom, is to become aware of the necessity. The very fact that man can see, measure, and analyze the determinisms that press on him mean that he can face them and, by so doing, act as a free man. If man were to say: "These are not necessities; I am free because of technique, or despite technique," this would prove that he is totally determined. However, by grasping the real nature of the technological phenomenon, and the extent to which it is robbing him of freedom, he confronts the blind mechanisms as a conscious being. At the beginning of this foreword I stated that this book has a purpose. That purpose is to arouse the reader to an awareness of technological necessity and what it means. It is a call to the sleeper to awake."
I'm so glad you share what he wrote. I still don't have my books, but the shelf is ready.
Transcending is the perfect way to describe it. Like the guy from Gospel for Asia said this weekend, "don't stop feeding your dog, or eat only rice and beans because you feel guilty about the suffering in India, but ask God what your part is". The stuff, or technology, isn't bad, it just distracts us sometimes, or for some of us - all the time.
If we could keep the right heart and use our technology for the purpose of making more time for friendship and community - instead of getting rich or having the latest cool thing, that would be cool. Not that we can't have the latest cool thing, but it seems the things we create now have more to do with entertaining our bored souls than making life better for ourselves and our neighbors.
I think I'm on a soap box :)
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