“Responsibility” is a Loaded Word

by Chris Boersma Smith | Jun 20, 2017 | Creative Expression, Empowering and Freeing Choices, Encouragement and Inspiration, Holy Spirit, Overcoming Obstacles, Pentecost Experiences, Transformational Breakthroughs

I was the oldest of five siblings and responsibility was so impressed upon me that my shoulders became a luggage rack. Try as I might — and occasionally do — I can’t shirk responsibility. Still, I know that this weight of the world isn’t really mine to bear alone. I can ask for help from family and friends or even get online assistance. I can also yoke myself to Jesus who promises to take burdens upon himself and lighten my load [Mt. 11:30]. I can turn to the Serenity Prayer and wisely accept things I cannot change, putting down some burdens as a result. But what difference does our attitude toward responsibility make when it comes to creativity? For one thing, putting down or sharing burdens frees up time and energy that could be put to creative use.

Also, whether you already carry huge responsibility or you chronically avoid it, the fear of responsibility can sometimes subconsciously sabotage your creativity or productivity. If you fear responsibility, you may avoid completing goals through procrastination (another way fear rears its head). Or you may repeatedly quit when you’re ahead but not yet at the finish line.

Let’s say you have a big creative idea, a vision you’d like to see manifested. If you’re typically very responsible, you may plan or start but then set aside your big creative vision as you handle a series of smaller responsibilities you “must” attend to, telling yourself you “can’t” put in the time or effort to move forward on the big creative idea. Or you may think you already have so many responsibilities on your plate that you can’t take on one more thing (not wanting to admit that perhaps you need to let go of something else).

Indeed, responsibility can be both an outright block in the form of excuses for attending to lower priorities as well as a fear that impedes your creative progress. I must admit that I’m easily caught in the former, and that there may be less conscious component of the latter . . . because how could a responsible person like I’ve been all my life fear the responsibility that might come with creative success?

Because we were all divinely meant to be creative in some way, each of us has the responsibility to carry out our mission. Christians have just celebrated Pentecost, reminding us that we are summoned to live all our lives “in the Spirit” [Rom. 8:9, Gal. 5:16,25]. We are to get out of the fear that keeps us waiting in the Upper Room; we are to get out there and live big and bold, doing what God’s called us to do. We are to get up and act without fear, not to push off onto others what we can do and are called to do, and not to leave our light hidden away where no one can see it [Mt. 17:7, Mt. 5:15]. So yes, sometimes doing our creative thing means responsibility. In this post-Pentecost time, how about praying for the Spirit’s guidance and the power of the Spirit to do what you’re being called to do, relying on gifts and fruits of the Spirit like fortitude and perserverance.

It also means using our personal gifts and talents and our unique circumstances that add meaning and beauty, serve and uplift the world. When that comes from the heart, it feels more like play and joy than like work and burden. So we need to get over the notion that creative success means increased responsibility and stop sabotaging creativity to protect our so-called freedom from increased responsibility. When we prioritize our writing, music, art, crafts, dance, performance, hospitality, entrepreneurship, leadership, ministry or service — whatever our calling involves — the creative triumphs we experience will lighten the weight we may perceive responsibility to be. And there’s tremendous freedom in knowing you’re doing what you are here to do!

Awareness is very powerful. Just realizing what your attitudes are towards responsibilities, big and small, informs your decision making, giving you the power to decide from a place that is more conscious, more considered, more intentional. It creates momentum and it empowers you to walk out your purposes.

Visualize feeling lightness and relaxation and creative success all together — even if just for a few seconds or just a tiny bit more than you usually do. Invite Jesus and the Holy Spirit to be present as you close your eyes and breathe with that visualization. Pray to experience the combination of lightness and relaxation, joy and creative success. And then during your creative process lighten up as needed for breaks and self-care. Perhaps add some uplifting music in the background as you work or create. Give thanks as you use your “bodyguard energy” to resist excuses to back away from your creativity, even or especially when the alternative activities come justified in your mind as “handling other responsibilities.” As you do that, you grow your ability to be responsible not just for the quotidian obligations of your household or job but, more than that, for creative causes ordained by the Great Creator and entrusted to you for completion. This is highly spiritual and transformative, which is good for you and for others.

Each successful step you take along a spiritually blessed creative path will encourage and uplift you and others and will be worth the responsibility taken to move forward. If you’d like help in overcoming obstacles and journeying on the spiritual path, perhaps you might pray about and consider signing up for an Unbound prayer session and then getting some spiritual direction.