“The price of greatness is responsibility. If the people of the United States had continued in a mediocre station, struggling with the wilderness, absorbed in their own affairs, and a factor of no consequence in the movement of the world, they might have remained forgotten and undisturbed beyond their protecting oceans: but one cannot rise to be in many ways the leading community in the civilized world without being involved in its problems, without being convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes.” – Winston Churchill speaking at Harvard in 1943.

Responsibility is “the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone.” Irresponsibility is to blame something or someone else for dereliction of that duty. Everyone has a duty to deal with life’s circumstances and other persons in a healthy way, to lean into responsibility personally and corporately.

Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. … Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, – Ephesians 5:15-16, 18. Paul is acknowledging the challenges the Ephesians faced walking in the light of the Lord when they were so used to the darkness. The preference may have been to hang out in the darkness and talk about the light. Taking responsibility for their new life and walking in the light of the Lord would require turning from their old ways and rebuking the darkness. Anything else is analogous to having one foot on the dock (old life) and one foot in the boat (new life). In short order, it is going to get uncomfortable. Leaning into their responsibility, the disciples boldly stepped forward in their relationship with Jesus the Christ. As men, husbands and fathers today, it is time to lean into responsibilities we have as Christians in marriage, family, church and beyond.

Leaning into the responsibility to know the Lord is reading and studying the Bible; Leaning into the responsibility to love your wife as Christ loved the Church is marriage; Leaning into the responsibility to raise Godly offspring is family. Leaning into the responsibility to worship God corporately is Church; and, leaning into the responsibility to be a Kingdom influence in society – “involved in its problems, convulsed by its agonies and inspired by its causes” - is Christian.

Prayer guide: Lord, thank You for accepting responsibility to obey Your Father all the way to the point of death, even death on a cross. By Your death and resurrection, You freed me from the power sin can have over man. Thank You Jesus! Yet I too often keep one foot in the old life and the other in the new. Forgive me. Grant me strength to follow Your example, to lean into responsibilities I have as the man, husband and father You call me to be, that the next generation needs. Amen.

A faithful father leans into responsibility as a Christian man, husband and father.