Personal Responsibility

(Warning this one is coming from my phone so my spelling and such might be worse than normal and I am not sure where I am going and won't know till I get there)



Sunday after a wonderful worship service, I came home and picked up the Sunday paper to be greeted by a picture of a young man who had spent most of his summer in our teen drop in center. He was was a little old for the center(19) but our outreach director felt comfortable with him. So I pulled him aside and spoke to him about why he wanted to come. His answer was that he just wanted to stay out of trouble.

Fair enough we let him keep coming. Hespent 2 months or so coming almost dail. He even won an "NBA Street" tourney.

After the two months he stopped coming around. About two weeks later there was a murder behind our corps (church) and now almost two months after the picture of the suspect is on the front page of the paper.

This broke my heart. As soon as I saw it I began to question the effectiveness of my ministry to this kid.

"Did I do enough? Were we paying enough attention." I ask these questions whenever I fail to reach someone.

And whenever I ask them outloud someone is always quick to comfort me. The problem is those words of comfort usually just make me mad.

When I have failed to make a difference in someone's life I don't want to hear mis-quoted scriptures about sowing seeds and I don't need someone to tell me that we don't save anyone only God saves people. These are bogus lines that we tell ourselves to justify our complacency so we can sleep better at night.

Well I don't want to sleep tonight!!! I want to know that this kid's ok I want him to know that regardless of what happened that night, there is still forgivenes and redemption for him spiritually.

I want to know that I am doing everything I can to make sure something similiar doesn't happen to any of my other kids.

In the Salvation Army we sing a song that has the line "the world for God the world for God I'll do my part I'll give my heart." And yet how many of us really do or part how many of us trully give themselves fully tosave the world.

I haven't. I am lazyi spend to much time watching TV or checking fantasy football or any number of fruitless activitieswhen I could be doing my part.

When I lose someoneto sin or addiction orthe streets I feel bad I feel really bad and I should. Because I love people.You can't love someone and remain detached. By loving we become involved intimately and suddenly everything we do or don:t do carrys so much more significance.

I am tired of being coddled when we lose one. We should be angry and upset.We weep over those that have fallen. Then get up and fight harder for their lives. Not because of some comission but because of our love for them.