Latest / The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast / Response, Not Responsibility | Releasing the Weight You Were Never Meant to Carry

Transcript

Response, Not Responsibility | Releasing the Weight You Were Never Meant to Carry · The Wholehearted Enneagram Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start this conversation by confessing something.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to share it because I'm pretty confident I'm not alone in this struggle.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: But for a long time, for decades actually, I prided myself on being what I now call an SRP, a super responsible person.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am a firstborn of four kids.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was a pastor's kid, a church intern.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was always the dependable one, the eager one, the one who wanted to do everything really well.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I learned early on how to carry weight.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to anticipate needs to follow through no matter what, and to make sure I held everything so nothing fell apart.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for a while, all of those actions and the responsibility I was carrying, well, it felt like a virtue.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But over time, something subtle began to slip into my mind, and that was responsibility wasn't just an action that I was doing or something I did.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility became who I was.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're learning your type or deepening your spiritual formation, these conversations will remind you that the Enneagram shines a light, that Christ is the transformation.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't just being faithful, and I was being faithful, but I was being burdened.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was feeling responsible for holding everything together, for not disappointing people and staying strong and making sure faith worked.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Without meaning to, I began to relate to godless as a beloved child and more like a dependable employee.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have you started feeling that way or ever felt that way?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was sincere, just probably as you are, faithful, but really tired.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want to help name for you.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility can masquerade as devotion.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me say that again.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility can masquerade as devotion, especially if you have learned early on to be capable, especially if you were trusted with emotional or spiritual weight or leaned heavily upon by others, and if you were praised for being the strong one.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But friend, responsibility, when it becomes your identity, well, that creates a heavy yoke.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does tell us and speak to us about heavy yokes.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, Jesus says, Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if the yoke you're carrying feels crushing and marked by pressure, fear, or constant self-monitoring, it's worth asking yourself this honest question.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where might I be relying on myself more than I realize?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And here is an important key to remember.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't invite you into responsibility.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: He specifically invites you into relationship.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: What I have had to unlearn, slowly and sometimes painfully, is that being responsible is not my identity.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Being God's beloved child is.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the same, my friend, is true for you.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You were never meant to carry the weight of outcomes or manage transformation, nor prove your worth through faithfulness that leads to exhaustion.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is not responsibility for God's work.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is a response to God's love.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture is actually really clear about this order of things.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians 2, 10, it says, For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So remember, it's by grace, and then God gives the gift, and then we have our identity, God's handiwork created in Christ.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the good works come after all of that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Grace and gift and belonging, our identity as beloved.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: The good works come not as pressure, but an invitation to participate with the Lord.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I know that in the last conversation, I brought up 1 John 4.19.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's worth saying it again, because the truth of that scripture is we love because he first loved us.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that changes everything.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wholeheartedness and faith is not about forcing love towards God or anyone else.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: It starts at the truth that we are to respond to love, a love that has already been freely offered to us.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when you forget that order, or when I forget that order, responsibility begins to creep in and take over.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But when you remember the order that you are to respond to love, then a response is just something natural that you do.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to be very, very clear about something.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So please hear me.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you've tuned out just a little bit, come back to me.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want you to hear that taking off the yoke of responsibility is an invitation to stop caring.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is not an excuse to disengage, and I'm not making a call to become irresponsible.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because responding to God's love doesn't make you passive.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It invites you to be properly aligned.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You still act, you still show up, you still do good work, but you're no longer responding from fear or a need to prove your worth or to control the outcome.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the distinction I want you to hold.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility says, this is on me.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Response says, God has moved and I am answering.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility manages outcome, response stays attentive to relationship.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Responsibility creates pressure.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Response creates presence.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in the perseverance of presence, whether it's with God or with others, formation happens.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen to the whole hearted rhythms series, Word, Worship, Writing, Wisdom, you may have picked up on something.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that was none of those practices were about being responsible for transformation.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: They were about responding to God's love and his presence.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, when you get in the word, God speaks.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: You are just listening.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: You're responding, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And with worship, in worship, God reveals who he is and you respond with trust.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: With writing, you get to notice what God is already at work doing.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And with wisdom, well, wisdom, remember, it's formed over time.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: You just get to respond with discernment.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: When responsibility starts to creep in and take over, those rhythms that I just outlined, they become requirements and religious duties.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But when it's a response to God's character, his speaking, his work, and something he's forming, rhythms become a refuge.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: They are a delight and they're a natural response to wholehearted living.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, friend, when responsibility is driving your faith, it usually comes from one of these three places.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: For you or for others, it might be fear.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this fear says that if you don't stay vigilant, something will fall apart.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: For you or for others, it is a need and a drive for significance.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is rooted in the belief that you matter because of what you do or what you hold together or what you accomplish.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And for you or someone you love, it's a need for control.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: The sense that staying strong or capable is the only way to stay safe, make things ideal, or to just make it happen.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Enneagram can help you notice these patterns.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it's to just be clear what is driving you fear, significance, or control.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not to judge those actions or even that desire, but to help you loosen your grip.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't meet fear with pressure.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And love invites response, not responsibility.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to invite you, not in a dramatic fashion, because we're not that about here, but I want you to notice the yoke that you've been carrying.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Ask yourself, what am I trying to be responsible for that God never assigned to me?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where has devotion over the years turned into religious duty, pressure, or performance?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what would it look like to respond instead of perform dutifully?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Friend, this isn't a moment to just drop everything and run.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to stop being faithful and you also don't have to swing to the other side and become passive.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to loosen your grip.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is why wholehearted rhythms matter and understanding what wholehearted really is.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about more tasks to manage or to try harder and do better.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way of responding to a God who loves you and who is already at work in your life and around you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: One more question for you to consider this week.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: When you feel the weight of I should, and your shoulders sink just a little bit, and you feel the heavy burden and everything feels harder.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: That one question can quietly change how you pray, act, and rest.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, John Eldridge has taught me something so important as I've been learning and sifting through responsibility versus response.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he has this little prayer that he does in his podcast and he does on his one-minute pause app.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, This, I give everyone and everything to you, Lord.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then he repeats it a few times.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have found myself doing that on the regular when my shoulders are feeling really heavy.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of stooped over, and I'm sighing a lot.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's that moment.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even need to identify what or who I need to give over to God.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just say that prayer several times, and I slowly feel my shoulders relax, my back straighten a little bit, my breath settles, and I usually have a clear starting point, even if I don't have everything figured out.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And even if I still have to be responsible in that moment.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Friend, I think this is something that you and I are going to have to spend some time on figuring out, learning, and walking out, maybe even until our dying day, until we meet Jesus face to face, and there is literally nothing for us to carry anymore.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that is going to be a good day.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: As we finish this conversation for now, because it's just a finish for now kind of conversation, I want to bless you and just remind you who you are.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You are not a project manager for God.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are his beloved child.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're not failing and you're not meant to carry this all alone.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: May you learn what it feels like to walk with Jesus side by side under a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And may your faith become more joy-filled, not because you care less, but because you are responding to love.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can also visit simply wholehearted.com to take the free Enneagram quiz and also get your personalized podcast playlist specific for your Enneagram type.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, friend, your starting point doesn't have to be your stuck point.