Accountability: what is it and do I need it?

Fallen- is what we are; falling is what we are do.  Preventing the fall is what we need to do and learning from our falls is what we can do.

I embrace, with humility, my own fallen human nature and my proclivity to fall again and again into sin and stupidity. I would love it if I could live in relationship with people who truly, genuinely want to see and bring the best out in me.  I hope that I too can speak into and invest my life in people in such a way that I too draw out the best in others.  It was Paul’s metaphor of childbirth when he speaks of “Christ being formed in you” (Gal 4:19) that gave me a clearer picture of the maturation process we must go through.  “Forming” is a process, it is becoming.  Is Christ becoming more and more my form?

Having people in my life who love me past my fallen state and loves me through the forming process is my picture of accountability.  Let this poem I shared in my February 21, 2010 message give you a visual of for the power and beauty of an accountability relationship.

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me.

I love you for the part of me you bring out.

I love you for putting your hand in my heaped up heart

and passing over all the foolish weak things that you can’t help dimly see in there

And drawing out into the light all the beautiful things no one else looks quite far enough to find.

I love you because you are helping to make out of the lumber of my life  not a tavern but a temple;

out of the works of my everyday not a reproach but a song                           -Lori Croft

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 3:51 pm and is filed under Spiritual Formation, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.