Now you notice now he's given the power of choice. God's not saying that I'm going to force you not to do it; He's saying you've got the power of choice, but that choice brings with it a consequence. It brings a consequence, so everyone has got the power of choice, but no one has the power over the consequences. You are already reaping today the consequences of yesterday's choices, so don't whine and complain about it and play the victim. Errr, not my fault! See, to win in life you have to take responsibility for your actions and choices. You've got to take responsibility, so here's the key principle here. You were created to take responsibility for yourself. You're created to take responsibility for yourself. You're made to be responsible for yourself. God intends you be responsible for yourself. Now of course a person who's very, very sick can only do limited things and needs someone to actually help and care for them.
A young baby can't take much responsibility. They don't have many privileges either, they're just there. They just get someone waiting on them, but eventually they should grow up and the design for parenting is - God's design is you teach your child that they have power to make choices, good and bad; there are consequences of a good and a bad choice, and they must be personally responsible for their choices. That's good stuff, good parental training. When you violate that and allow the child not to face and feel his consequences of bad choices, you then ruin the child because they're not learning a vital lesson for success in life, that if I choose good I'll get good results; if I choose bad I'll get bad results. They have to learn that and so that's one of the major functions of the parent in nurturing, bringing up a child is to teach them that they have power of making choices, good and bad, and the bad ones will always have bad consequences even if not immediately.
They have to learn that and so if a child does something bad and you don't hold them to account for their behaviour and have bad consequences, what happens is they never learn. You've rescued them and in rescuing the person you've taken away from them the learning opportunity they had. This is really important stuff. Think about this, you see? So you know, often a teenager, they're wanting all the privileges and your mother says, father says or whatever, your parents say well you've got to get these things done before you're allowed to go out tonight to that function. So you mess around, don't get them done and then there's this battle goes on; I want to go out! No, you can't, you haven't done - did we not say that if you got these done you could go and if you didn't get these done you couldn't go? Oh you're not fair! You're just so mean!
Now listen, that person is behaving like a child and the more they do it, then the younger they're getting all the way until there's no way you're going out! Such a child could never be allowed out like that on their own. Come on, think about it. So a teenager mostly is looking for freedom and privileges without responsibility. The parent's role is to help them become responsible and attach privileges to growing responsibility. Getting the idea? Well it's not all about that. I want to get you out of a victim mode first of all so you stop blaming everyone okay? [Laughs] So you're responsible for some things. Your thoughts are your thoughts, don't blame me for how you think. Your feelings are your feelings, so don't shut them down, own them. Your choices are your choices, your words are your words; you made me so mad! No, I didn't make you mad. That's your stuff. Your feelings are your feelings!
Your actions are your actions. Your desires are your desires. Own them! Own them! Own them! They're part of who you are. You have to own them - so that's part of it. God's made you to become - He's called you to become responsible for the decisions and things that happen in your life, so you've got to do it. If you're going to win in life you've got to be responsible for your choices and your actions. It's the only way you can win in life. I read something the other day, look at this one. You'll love this. When rewards are handed out they belong to you, but when consequences arrive remember they weren't delivered to the wrong address. [Laughter] That's quite good isn't it aye? When consequences arrive remember they weren't delivered to the wrong address; it's not fair! Oh yeah, it's fair. They've just arrived. They had your name on it, had your name on it see?