10/02/2026
Greetings church, if it's ok, I'd like to start today's devotional section of the email bragging on my kids a little bit. They are growing up fast with Aislynn a senior and looking at colleges, and Coen halfway through middle school and really coming into his own, too. Thankfully, they are not only growing up (Coen in particular getting crazy tall and not slowing down), but we can see their maturity developing as well.
Something I've noticed in particular that I'm impressed by (in part because I was often the opposite when I was growing up) is their ability and willingness to take the initiative in being accountable and working to make things right if they had a conflict or a problem. I've seen them both do this with friends in ways I remember feeling too self-conscious or worried about to put myself out there like that, and I know that's a big reason why they both have plenty of strong, long lasting friendships. They also do this with Wendy and I when there has been an argument or something we want them to handle differently; they usually re-initiate contact after we recommend everyone taking space to calm down and think things over, whether we specifically asked them to or not - and the ways they decide to work and reconcile are always meaningful for the situation, our relationship, and their own development... more so than just a punishment I may have thought about imposing from the outside if they weren't taking responsibility.
I've been reflecting on that after a few recent examples of them doing this, especially as Aislynn getting ready for college has my hopes for their independence and my observations about the world they are becoming more a part of particularly on my mind right now.
It's occurred to me how fraught our culture's relationship with accountability tends to be, and so I hope they're able to hold onto this character trait they've both shown, and exert it through their lives even when it is rare or difficult, because I think it is transformative.
It seems like our primary conception of accountability in the world is combative. So people often resist taking responsibility. If you've been mistreated, it can often feel like you have to chase down any possibility of things being made right. We expect a battle between who's will to justify themselves for either maximum punishment or complete avoidance of responsibility to be the pattern. I think authorities will often be tempted towards mistakes that are two sides of the same coin because of this: either ignoring accusations because the process of accountability feels too complicated or overwhelming... or accepting a process that brings a false conviction just to feel satisfaction that someone was punished and things feel resolved for the authority whether things are accurate or anything has actually been made right in any meaningful way or not.
I think it's sad that this often seems to be the extent of what we think accountability can be in our lives - and then it makes sense that it can bring up feelings of fear or exhaustion, depending on our relationship to it. There is a version of accountability that it seems like my kids hope in and try for, a version that is covenantal instead of combative. This is the version we see modeled by and offered to us by God in the Bible in things like the patience and efforts to turn Israel and Judah from their injustice, militarism and idolatry of false power to try and turn from their destruction at the hands of other empires; and in stories like the joyful salvation of Zaccheus when he let go of using worldly systems for his own advantage and sought just sharing and thriving with his community, or Peter reconciled and restored to Kingdom ministry by Jesus after his denials of Jesus at the crucifixion.
This covenantal accountability is based on love, trust and safety. It fosters learning and growth, and healthy, resilient relationships. It tends to also be preventative, because we are aiming to do right by each other however we can - not just figuring out how to absorb a small cost into the calculus of getting whatever we can for ourselves. It is transformative of the type of people we can be, and the type of world we can live in, and God is its source and ultimate practitioner. Because it has been offered to us, it means we can also participate in it through God's support if we will recognize it is there. Sometimes it can mean almost unbelievable reconciliation, but it also recognizes that perhaps not every violation is right to result in close connection again between offender and offended, but a right approach to what happened will send both people into the rest of their lives with a path of empowerment towards what is healing and good and just for who they can be from then on.
Another way I've thought of it, if a metaphor helps, is that we can be stuck thinking life and accountability are only like physics in the combative model - something like duking out a relational version of Newton's 3rd Law of Motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. God offers us a hope that maybe life and accountability can be a little bit more like chemistry, where component parts can be completely transformed when given the right context for interaction. This is like when sodium, which cannot exist in our world in its pure state because it is explosively reactive with things like water and air, and chlorine, which is extremely toxic in its primary solo gas form, somehow combine into... table salt.
I feel like there's been some encouragement from somewhere to be something like salt in our lives. Maybe seeing that as part of the metaphor can be meaningful for us as we navigate our lives, relationships and faith.
