Recently, I put up a post about making personal decisions, and another about who in the world we are actually in charge of. Now, I want to talk about both those things under the headline of RESPONSIBILITY.
WE are responsible for ourselves and what we do.
We cannot play the victim when we make wrong choices. We cannot walk away from them.
We are responsible for the choices we make, not the wrong choices of others.
Though we are called to forgive wrong actions by loving every person as a human being and as the child of God which he or she is, and though we are called to point out to them that sin is sin–still, we are only responsible for what we do.
There may be people we know casually, or people we are close to, who have made or are in the process of making wrong choices. Those choices are theirs, not ours. A person who willingly chooses a path for himself–one we think/know is wrong–is the only person responsible for the result of that choice.
This does not mean that his/her choice will not affect us physically or emotionally, but it will not affect us spiritually. However, it will spiritually affect the one who made the decision.
If the person is not close to us, we may not care. If he or she is close to us, we maybe heart-broken. But we are never able to get into the skin of another and act for them.
Again, responsibility for their action belongs to them, and them alone. Each of us has been given the gift of Free Will by God. If it is used well, or if it is used badly, the buck stops with the person who made the choice. And that is the person who will ultimately pay the price.
Translating a World on the Edge 