Yes it's mine...I own it.

So I'm on a mid-week run at work and I see this little vignette played out. Big sister and little brother are riding their bikes down the sidewalk across the street from me. Their mother is walking and she is maybe a block and a half behind the kids. The brother and sister get to an intersection. There is no stop sign or anything, just a residential area where a side street feeds into a slightly more busy street.

Anyway, the sister dutifully stops to look both ways but little brother just keeps going. His sister is yelling for him to STOP! To no avail. At last he stops his over sized bike (he's about 7 and his bike is too big) right in the middle of the street. His sister is so angry....the kind of anger that rises from what had just moments ago been fear. She's lecturing him, looking back and calling for her mom who is outside the range of help or even hearing. And the boy, he pleads his innocence and blames it all on his brakes. Yep, he uses the ol' brake defense in hopes of shutting down the rain of words that is pounding down upon him.

Of course, all of this happens in about 10 or 15 seconds. I find myself chuckling. There was no imminent danger but sis was correct on the principle level. Brother needs to be looking both ways lest he find his young little life prematurely snuffed out. The thing I found humorous was the passion the boy displayed in making his case that his brakes absolutely had failed him and that it was not his fault. Although I hope it's not the case, this little guy may have just utilized what will ultimately be a lifetime habit of placing himself in the role of victim...just an innocent victim.

My mind wandered off into a flurry of judgemental remembrances for all the people I have observed over my life who never seem to be responsible for anything that comes their way. Somehow, their brakes have failed every time, the dog has eaten the homework yet again, "the man" has taken it to them and even the devil made me do it.

Entire groups of people and organizations do this too. We didn't hit our bottom line because of the economic downturn, our projections are off because of an unavoidable change in an unexpected area. In this election year, we see entire political parties blame the other party for every social ill that has occurred over the last 4 years. I know, I know. There is often plenty of truth to what is cited as the cause for each failing observed.

It's just that I find myself hungering to hear more instances of accepting full responsibility for whatever the outcome. Like I saw when watching the Olympics when a favored athlete or team was defeated and lost the gold medal in an upset. How satisfying to hear an athlete say, "He/she just had a better race", "I made some mistakes and paid the price".

OK, so now I have run a couple of blocks further past the brother and sister incident and have mused about all this lack of accepting accountability that I seem to see as running rampant through life. At this point Jesus joins me on the run...(He does that a lot by the way, I rarely ever really run alone). I hear "So what about you?" And I proceed to find myself busted yet again. Get this, I like to fashion myself as a pretty "the-buck-stops-hear" kind of guy. And yet this tsk-tsking party I was having in my head, this judgement of all the irresponsibility I see swimming around me had somehow served to hoist me up on the bench of the supreme court where I was rendering my verdict on all of the less forthright "out there".

Ladies and gentlemen, I do take full responsibility for being a virtual judging machine. I too have a full measure of the inheritance of Adam and Eve's rebellion and I gorge myself on the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil on a daily basis. Despite my well-intentioned plans to stay on a strict diet of "collapsing all judgment", I find myself breaking my fast with painful regularity. Truth be known, it tires me out. I guess too much trying and not enough being.

The Kingdom I have been delivered into and that I have been called to help advance is not about judgment of others. It's about acceptance, thinking the best of others and putting their interests first. It's an impossible way of life that can only be accomplished by surrendering my rights and depending on the Author of life to empower my living and to give me the capacity to live beyond my own character's abilities. Just wanted to say that I get that and I take full responsibility for each of my actions. Jesus, forgive me for my selfish, self-righteous judgments of others. Have your way in me. I do want to be about your business....you are the hero of this story and I belong to you.