Lysa TerKeurst: Accountability...helpful or detrimental?

Dear SheTribe,

This post is actually from Lysa TerKeurst's blog, and I thought it deserved to be reprinted here. I'd love to here your comments or thoughts.

Accountability…helpful or detrimental?

In the middle of a radio interview about “Made to Crave” recently, the show’s host opened the phone lines for questions. Much to my surprise the first caller was a man. He was using the message of Made to Crave to overcome his struggles with a pornography addiction. He confessed that for years he’d tried to win this battle using an accountability partner.

It sounds good to have a friend who will hold you accountable.

And it can be crucial.

But, it can be detrimental as well.

Whether accountability is positive or negative depends on where the conversations are focused. What we focus on will become bigger and more magnified.

The radio caller confessed when meeting with his accountability partner, he’d make note of all the inappropriate sites his accountability partner confessed during their time together… and made a point to visit there later. Instead of helping his addiction, this accountability relationship was actually fueling his failure.

It wasn’t until they changed their focus from porn to Truth that positive progress started to be made. When he focused on the porn, his thoughts became more and more conformed to his pattern of sin. When he focused on Truth, he became more and more transformed into a pure man of God.

Wow, did this make complete sense to me. My physical struggle is not the same as this man. But, my physical struggle with food can be just as luring and consuming. What might happen if instead of focusing on the scale, the food, and the hardship of sacrifice we turned our dialog to this:

1. Our goal is letting the peace of God rule in us. Are you at peace?

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you,” Isaiah 26:3

2. Our desire is to honor God with our bodies. How did you honor God this week?

“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies,” 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20.

3. Our perspective is to fill our soul with an abundance of truth instead of our stomach with an abundance of food. What truths were you filled with this week?
“…and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” John 8:32.

Of course part of accountability is to ask the tough questions about the physical struggles.

But we shouldn’t make this our focus.

If we want to grow closer to God, we have to distance ourselves from the distractions holding us back. And part of the distancing process is focusing and magnifying God more and more…especially in our times of accountability.


Friends,
Do you participate in an accountability relationship. If not, why? Do you believe that God wants us to be involved in accountability, and if so, why do so many Christians ignore this?

In pursuit of zoe,