Choosing to be a responsible adult …

I learned early in life to be a responsible person by having unfettered freedom at an early age.

Not long after my mom died just as I was turning a teenager, the state of Arizona allowed me to be on my own. That’s a great deal of freedom for a teen! It also meant I had to find a way to survive and put myself through high school. It was obvious that I had the freedom to indulge in doing whatever I wanted, or to choose to use my freedom to be responsible and succeed in living.

Those teen years weren’t the only temptation to my sense of responsibility. If you really want to tempt me to indulge, put a beach nearby!

The few years I lived in Hawaii, less than two blocks from the world-renowned Waikiki Beach, you might say my desire to indulge in my favorite thing (being at the beach) was sorely heightened.

But this was a transitional time for me where I was doing some ministry (some counseling and consulting) and at the same time building the largest home healthcare agency in Hawaii that would go on to exceed the successes of the company’s 120 branches in major markets across the mainland. While the beach seemed to be calling to me every day, I had a lot of responsibilities that would only succeed with plenty of attention from me.

I wound up choosing to try to get just a little beach time most days, even if it was just a 10-minute stroll at sunset before returning to my responsibilities, and then larger doses of beach time sometime on the weekends.

It was enough.

I was able to be responsible, succeed at my endeavors, and have some enjoyment of what delights me in a special way.

This temptation of what to do with our freedom — to be responsible or not — is very real for all of us. I see the struggle is particularly strong with younger people who have some money to spend. The temptation is to spend it rather than learning to save, and to spend it by stuffing all available “free” time with pleasures and entertainments. They often choose to be as minimally responsible as possible so they can maximize indulgences that make them “happy.”

What they often discover some time later is, for a while they may have maximized their selfishness (and at the time it felt great!), but they really missed out on making life deeper and broader than it could have been had they learned to voluntarily contain their freedoms and opt to more fully fulfill their responsibilities.

The greatest opportunity that comes with freedom is the choice to not be selfish. By choosing to be responsible, we discover a myriad of opportunities that come only with a fuller exercise of self-discipline. What we can learn is that God wants us to enjoy the life He has given us, AND He also wants us to be responsible with the opportunity that comes with being alive …

“… When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required,” Luke 12:48b.

This blend of enjoying life and choosing to be responsible is captured in a delightful video of a little boy walking his dog when he wanders upon a puddle of water. Oh, the temptation to explore that puddle of water! But oh, the responsibility at the other end of the leash! What to do? Click here to see what the little boy decided.

All of us have been given much by God giving us a life to live and to be responsible for; much will be required from this gift!

Are you just indulging in and enjoying life, or are you enjoying life in a responsible way so that you have something to give back to God for the great blessing of life?

Scotty