Bulletin Article May 2024

Strategicresourcetraining   -   May 13, 2024

by Natalie Holmyard

Planting Crops of Life and Blessing

Wednesday: I am committed, Father, to accept full responsibility for my actions and reactions as we strategically plant the crops of life.

“accept full responsibility” ……. Wow.  That is Dennis meddling in my life!  When I first read the above sentence, it would have been very easy to skip over this part and just head straight to “strategically planting the crops of life”.  

Who wouldn’t want to sow and reap crops of life? 

I definitely would have gone straight to this part of the sentence, except for the fact that “accepting full responsibility” was not something I was very good at. I had probably spent the better part of my 29 years doing exactly the opposite.  Not really accepting responsibility, always looking for someone to blame – (as a child – my parents and as a married woman – my husband).  I was developing and growing into a largely untrustworthy person who wanted to reap crops of life without sowing them.  I certainly did not want to accept full responsibility – only partial – and only if I had no other choice.  Life was pretty miserable.  Full of justification, defence, and tension.  

Does this sound familiar to you?  Is the Holy Spirit trying to witness to you and get your attention? Thankfully, the Holy Spirit would not leave me alone and this audio became one that I listened to repeatedly.  Deep within me, in my new creation in Christ Jesus, I knew that it was my flesh, my sinful nature, that did not want to take responsibility.  
 
What I needed to do was to be filled with the Holy Spirit, confess, repent, learn new ways, practice, and repeat.

Over and over again.  Slowly but surely, (as practice makes permanent), my whole life transformed, and I began to live as someone who knew Jesus and knew His ways.  Accepting responsibility for my actions and most significantly my reactions, became a cornerstone of my character.  Before this change, saying sorry and asking for forgiveness were almost foreign concepts and I usually only went to this place kicking and screaming.

Now, over 25 years later, I hope that I am known in my family as someone quick to take responsibility for my actions and reactions.  Becoming a daughter of the living God who accepts full responsibility, largely has seen my actions and reactions become more aligned with the ways of Christ.  However……. I still daily have to confess my flesh which will always manifest in actions and reactions and on days I struggle, I have to take a whole lot more responsibility than on my good days.
 
I think all of us would much rather this lesson focus on the sowing and reaping concept of life and blessings.  It is an important and true gift, to His body, that we have this wonderful biblical principle with which to model our lives.

The thing is, we can’t get there without the “full responsibility” piece in play.  Firmly rooted deep within us. It needs to become a reflex. It needs to become who we are.  Imagine what your life would look like, if you were a “fully responsible” daughter or son of the living God.  Imagine what your family would look like.  Your church? Your workplaces? Your country?