Is it me?

I have, for some time now, held to the view that while we may be able to explain our behaviour, we must never let those explanations become excuses. For example, the failure of my parent's relationship and the impact it had on me as a child, may explain why I struggled to trust others during my teenage years and even why I carried a sense of personal responsibility for what had happened. But that doesn't excuse any ongoing issues with trust. I must deal with the problem, and grow, and learn how to trust.

I am responsible for my actions and responses.

Now, by the grace of God, I have learnt these lessons, although I'm sure there are times when old wounds open and history begins to repeat itself. However, I refuse to give in to those fears. I choose to seek God's way forward, to live in the light of the Gospel that I continually preach as the good news that transforms lives. A message I could not preach unless I too am experiencing the transformation it promises.

The point of all this is to draw your attention to something Chester and Timmis say in their book Total Church.

If we subscribe to a view that makes our 'complex aetiologies' [the root causes of our problems] responsible for our behaviour and attitudes, then we put our lives at the mercy of our genes or our parents or our chemistry or our past. Ultimately we make those multiple factors sovereign over our lives. Of course they can be significant factors, but we have in the precious promises of the gospel all we need to respond to those factors in a way that results in godly behaviour and godly attitudes. such a response may not be easy. It may involve a daily struggle. But it is possible.

Total Church p128

Surely this is what it means to be submitted to Christ, to make him sovereign, to declare him Lord. Anything less denies the power of the gospel to transform.