Creating a new beginning places responsibilities on you; the responsibility of freeing yourself from the past and taking steps to achieve something better than what you have lost, the responsibility of sincere appraisal and readiness to make necessary amends and improve-ments. Until you accept responsibility for your life, you keep making excuses and looking for a scapegoat to blame for everything that happens to you. And those who constantly look for who to blame remain lame. So, to recover from a fall, you must accept responsibility. Accept responsibility for your success or failure in life. 

A man of God, Frederick Price said, “If I succeed, it is my fault and if I fail it is my fault.” The reason many people remain in failure is because they are not willing to accept responsibility. I have seen and heard of men who made their way out of terrible circumstances of life into greatness, just because they accepted responsibility for their lives. Somebody said,

“It is easy to dodge our responsibilities but we cannot dodge the consequences of our irresponsibility.”

People may have been responsible for the evil that happened to you in the past, bus gom are responsible for your future. Someone might have gained access to your past and destroyed it, but no one has access into your future. Your future is exclusively between God and you. So, you don’t have any business bemoaning the past, you have all it takes so make the most of your future, because God has a great plan for you. When you understand this, you will not let anybody or anything constitute a stumbling block to you 

No one is the reason for your being on the ground! Stop talking about one witch somewhere or some body who hates you and does not want you to succeed. You know, the best the whole world can cus tribute to your making or unmaking is 25%. The remaining 75% is made up of your personal input So, it is only what you allow that prevails in your life. Can you see then that you are your greatest friend and your greatest friend? Rise up and accept responsibility for your life! If you disallow failure around you, it cannot prevail over your destiny.

Even if you have been rejected and cast anar bo your family, refuse to blame anybody, just as lost refuse to blame his brothers for throwing his 200 the pit and selling him into slavery. Rather pal mo experience behind you and accept responsibilities for your future. Some people blame their age, their par-ents, spouses or children for where they have found themselves in life, that is a lazy man’s mentality. 

Like I said earlier, every event in life is created by some-one, nothing happens by accident. That means no man succeeds or fails by accident. Success responds to acceptance of responsibility, while failure results from the lack of it.

There is the story of Joni Eareckson Tada who as a teenager broke her neck when she dived into a shallow lake in 1967. Ever since then she has been paralysed from the neck down but the most amazing thing about Joni is that after two years of rehabilitation she has been just as active and productive as any normal (non-disabled) person if not more. She is an internationally acclaimed painter (painting with a brush between her teeth, she has written 27 books, recorded several musical albums and is actively involved as an advocate for disabled people. 

Not only is she the founder and president of an organization that accelerates Christian ministry in the disabled community, she is a recipient of many national awards, including “Church Woman of the year” in 1993 by the Religious Heritage Foundation.

Stop blaming people and situations for where you are! Start making adventures towards your destiny, start taking steps! You need time to fail, just as you need time to succeed, so why not turn your time of failure into your time of success? Fight all odds on your way, fight through the barriers and breakthrough into a higher phase of life. It is when you accept responsibility for your life that your brain cells come alive and you are able to think through from failure to success.

I always challenge young people to leave their father’s house and fend for themselves, not in rebellion but as a way of accepting responsibility for their lives. If you ask me the parameter for measuring a man’s age, I will tell you, it is his sense of responsi-bility. That is why there are young men in their 20s who are responsible and are making headway in life. 

While there are others at 50 who cannot do anything for themselves because they are not responsible. Somebody once asked me, “What is the right age to get married?” I told him, “When you become responsible.” Because you can’t be talking of marriage at the age of 25 or 30 when you are still relying on your parents for everything! If you are a parent, I’ like to urge you to let your children learn to accept responsibility. Let them face challenges and take up new adventures in life. Don’t over pamper or over protect them, let them grow!

There is a man of God I know who was once a houseboy. Incidentally the woman he served became a member in his church and she now addresses him as “our father in the Lord.” Maybe when he was a house boy, people tried to tell him that he would not become anything in life, but he accepted responsibility for his future and today his story has changed.

Please, get committed to your life and let your spirit move over the issues of concern to you till you break out of a void and formless existence into a new beginning.

The essence of accepting responsibility is choice making; the choice to fail or succeed. You cannot afford to leave your destiny to chance, you are a creature of choice not of chance, so you must make your choice and consciously work out it’s fulfilment…

This text is an extract from the book “CREATING A NEW BEGINNING” written by David O. Abioye. 
We invite you to read the following article “UNWIND GOD’S GIFT IN YOU!“.