If you study into Abraham Lincoln and his Civil War generals, you will recognize common traits among the few good generals he had at his command, as well as common traits among the bad generals.
One that differentiated the two: Bad generals didn’t want to fight the Confederates unless they could receive all the credit for the victory and none of the responsibility in defeat. They wanted the option to blame the loss on Lincoln and his administration. We didn’t have enough troops, enough horses, that’s why we lost!
Imagine if we applied that kind of thinking to our lives—anything that goes well, you get full credit for, but if anything goes wrong, you have permission to blame someone else. My dog ate my homework! would seem a valid excuse.
Contrast that mentality with the good generals like Ulysses S. Grant who took responsibility for his actions. If he won the battle, he was quick to share the credit with other generals in his army. If he encountered some kind of failure, he accepted the responsibility.
When Grant was travelling with the Army of the Potomac—the army tasked with defeating Confederate general Robert E. Lee—he was eager to take the battle to Lee. Grant communicated with Lincoln ahead of foraying into Virginia, and he wrote: “Should my success be less than I desire and expect, the least I can say is, the fault is not with you.” Grant would accept responsibility for his defeats. That was a very different approach from many of Lincoln’s other generals who were slow to fight. Grant gave Lincoln victories while other generals gave Lincoln excuses.
Though you are not leading troops on a Civil War battlefield, taking personal responsibility is just as important for you. It is a critical part of maturing and growing up. In Biblical Manhood, Joel Hilliker writes about this connection. It’s a connection every young person should pay attention to.
“What happens if you go through life focusing on what you don’t have?” Mr. Hilliker writes. “If you focus on what other people aren’t doing for you? If you never take responsibility for yourself? What happens is that you never mature. You become stuck thinking like a child. In some form, you forfeit responsibility for your life to someone else.
“As a newborn, you need someone else to do everything for you. Growing up means taking on one responsibility after another: going to the bathroom yourself, dressing yourself, doing chores, going to school, finishing your homework, driving a car, getting a job, marrying a wife and having a child of your own. You end up being the one with all the responsibility.”
He explains one of the major signs of one’s maturity is “how much he embraces responsibility. A responsible 16-year-old can be more mature than an irresponsible 40-year-old. This process is a journey that moves you from being taken care of to taking care of yourself and others.”
Maturing is a journey. You are on that journey right now! Are you moving towards becoming a mature young adult? The answer to that question depends on whether or not you are taking on more responsibility for yourself.
Mr. Hilliker goes on to give a list of human tendencies to shirk responsibility: We may blame our failures on others or make excuses. We may lack ambition—we’d rather have someone prod us on than take charge of our own lives. We may be more focused on what others should be doing for us rather than what we can contribute to others.
One example of that last tendency can crop up in our social life. Consider how you are periodically admonished to spread yourself around socially. Do you think, I’ll just wait until other people spread themselves to me. Rather than taking on that mindset, you can take the initiative and spreading yourself to others.
Other tendencies that keep us from being responsible include wasting time on worthless or selfish pursuits, playing the victim card—which is another form of making excuses—and attributing the success of other people to luck or circumstances.
If these human tendencies describe you or the way you think about success and failure, then you are moving in the wrong direction in your journey to maturity.
If you deflect responsibility and blame others for our problems, weakness and failures, then you won’t do anything about it. You won’t be motivated to change because it is someone else’s problem, not yours. The same is true if you blame circumstances. You will wait for circumstances to change rather than changing them yourself. You will wait and wait and wait until circumstances are just right to act.
That’s how many of the Union generals thought. They waited and waited and waited for conditions to be just right before engaging in a fight, which enabled the Confederates to get the upper hand time after time. President Lincoln would be left wondering how the Confederates were able to do more than the Union armies with much fewer men and supplies.
God wants us to grow up, to mature, and accept responsibility because God wants to give us amazing responsibility in the Kingdom. He wants to give you
rule over cities—planets—galaxies! That’s a lot of responsibility! But we have to go on that journey now and embrace responsibility.
Galatians 6:4-5 says, “But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
For every man shall bear his own burden.” We all bear own personal responsibility. Even if you try to pass it off to someone else, God still looks at it as your responsibility.
Verse 7 continues, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This is the law of cause and effect. There is a cause for good outcomes in your life, and that depends on what you do. You have to see your responsibility for the positive and negative outcomes in your life.
Proverbs 9:12 in the New Living Translation reads: “If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit. If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer.” Another translation concludes it: “you alone will bear the consequences.”
It is up to you to apply that wisdom. If you take on more personal responsibility in the areas you are responsible for, you will benefit from it! You will reap what you sow. But if you ignore this instruction and resist this journey, then you alone bear the consequences.
You do have help along the way—your parents. You are still their responsibility and they will give you opportunities to take on more personal responsibility. As you mature, you should need less parental prodding to do the things you need to do—finishing your homework, studying for tests, practicing your instrument, completing your chores.
Mr. Hilliker writes: “Maturing means that you grow from deflecting blame to accepting responsibility. You grow from being a passive observer to an initiator. You grow from being a victim to being a doer. You grow from expecting things to providing things. You grow from following to leading.”
As you learn to take responsibility, you will not only benefit yourself, but you will benefit others. As you grow in maturity, you will be in a better position to give and serve others. You will grow into a much a stronger leader. This journey leads to all kinds of blessings. It is up to you to take it.