The Ability to Respond

This blog is an article for the Together Paper of Wagga Wagga Diocese May Edition.

Often the word ‘responsibility’ brings with it the sense that someone else is telling me what I need to do, like parents with my household chores, teachers with how we behave socially, or a spouse with expectations of who takes care of what in the home. Or it carries the almost humorous tone of ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ – Spider Man, and the giggles that follow. 

Responsibility is far less about what we have been told to do or expected by someone, and more about what we take personal account and ownership for, and perhaps most importantly our intent – why we do it. 

In my therapeutic work, we talk about the difference between responding to a situation and reacting to a situation. When a parent faces a child who refuses to eat their vegetables, swears at them, slams the door (when you’d just said don’t slam the door!) and that parent loses all cool ‘that’s it!’ – that is a moment of reacting. We’ve taken the heightened words, emotions, behaviours of another and either made it personal or at least attributed a meaning to it we find unpalatable, and so we react with our own heightened emotions, behaviours and thoughts in return. This never gets us close to what we’re trying to achieve. Instead, we want to focus on how we can RESPOND to someone else’s heightened thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Ironically, to be able to do this well, we need to respond to ourselves first. 

– Thought: ‘She slammed the door just to disrespect me!’ – Is that factual or merely an intense feeling? Is this a genuinely helpful thought right now? 

– Feeling: I am so angry! – What other emotions are sitting alongside or underneath that anger? 

– Behaviour: Marching to my child’s room to remind them who is in charge here – That’s one option. What other options do I have? 

When we can intentionally slow things down enough, we become more truly free to make choices that help us to respond to a situation instead of reacting. Anyone can react (and we all do from time to time), but only the mature person can respond repeatedly. Reactions steal our choices; Responding gives us back the freedom to choose. 

RESPONS-Ability then becomes the ability to respond to the situation at hand. 

This is a requisite for self-mastery and self-possession – to be able to say: 

1. ‘I know myself well enough to know my strengths – and I’ll use it to bring Glory to God in the service of others’ 

AND 

2. I know my weaknesses and I know how I’m working to overcome them 

There is something attractive about the person who can do this because they have taken genuine responsibility for themselves. Not because a formator told them to, or their parents pushed them to, or a teacher expected them to, or even a spouse would be disappointed if they didn’t. They are no longer governed by a third person who constantly monitors their behaviour. They act because they themselves possess a moral code. This moral code creates a stability and security that allows them to move through the world with confidence and freedom.

The responsible person walks with their chin up and holds themselves with assertiveness and confidence not only in their strengths but also in their weaknesses. 

Do NOT mistake this for pride. 

The responsible person is not proud of their weaknesses. No, they have simply taken such account and charge of them AND they have such trust and faith in God’s grace, that they know their weaknesses will become strengths in due course. 

‘For when I am weak, then I am strong’ – 2 Corinthians 12:10. 

This is how the humble person can walk in assurance, and how the person who knows their every weakness can still walk with confidence. Not confidence in their current perfections, but in the perfection of grace that is given to us as we progress towards wholeness, healing and growth. 

This reminds us of St Paul when he says to ‘work out your own salvation’ (Philippians 2:12). The mature Christian is not passive but participates and that requires responsibility. It requires a willingness to respond to God’s grace rather than to resist it. 

Thomas Aquinas reminds us that ‘grace builds upon nature’. God continues to pour grace upon us, but our growth becomes most effective when we work WITH God, rather than directly against him, or indirectly in a false posture of surrender that assumes we are incapable, and that God must do all the work for us.