Taking Responsibility for our Actions
14 Aug 2026

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
- Proverbs 28:13

Devotional:
I had to counsel a mother whose daughter returned home after making a mess of her life after graduating college.

After receiving her degree from California University, Berkeley; the daughter proceeded to make some bad life mistakes that lead to a suggestion for her to return home so that she could reboot. Upon returning home she created a hellish time for the mother, claiming that sending her to Berkeley was a bad decision by her mom; and if she had gone to UCLA she would not be in this situation. Well, it turns out that during the daughter's freshman year the mom gave her the option to attend UCLA, to which the daughter declined.

More problems start to surface between the two, in which the daughter is now telling the mother that she is a bad mom and not even a Christian. The mom thought that the daughter was unpredictable in her horrible nature, but after close examination I explained to the mother that her daughter would go into a fit after a something good would happen to someone close to them: younger sister getting married before her, mom getting a great job, mom finding someone special in her life, etc. As I continued to talk with the mother we start to see the picture of her daughter's problem. During the course of the daughter's college years the mother had given her sound advice on many different issues, but the daughter refused the input and went her own way.

The issues that the pair suffer from relates to the daughter not accepting responsibility for the actions she took, but instead comes home to place blame upon the mother, when the daughter clearly refused to do what was sound and right.

The Bible asks us to take responsibility for our actions by confessing them to God and not repeating them. We find that we act like the daughter mentioned here and we blame God when things don't go our way, when God clearly gives us better guidance


Prayer:
Heavenly Father, I trust your word for my life. Be the light unto my path and lamp unto my feet. In Jesus' name, Amen.