Confrontation and Being Accountable

I struggle with confronting people, being confronted and the concept of being held accountable and holding a friend accountable, but both appear to have a place in many churches these days and they could be considered central themes in the story of David and Nathan (2 Samuel 11:1-12:25). 

The concepts of accountability and confronting others personally improved after I read the book The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. One success principal they presented was how an employee, in consultation with their manager, comes up with an attainable concise action plan and it is this action plan that is the employee is held accountable to. After putting this into practice I felt far more comfortable and realized that what made me recoil were two main factors: uninvited confrontation when the person confronting is unaware of the circumstance; holding someone accountable by imposed principals. For me, the strength of this concept is primarily when the measure is developed by an individual and guided by God.

If God is involved then when we step of the tracks God will send messengers and these can be in the form of a friend, a dream, a newspaper article, a sermon and just about anything… we need to have the ears to hear. Nathan was sent by God to confront David when David went off-the-track. The message was received, the sin was recognized, God brought David out of the mess and restoration occurred.

After reading the story of David and Nathan and One Minute Manager I have been encouraged to: get real with God  and set some attainable goals; keep my ears open to God;  and when God speaks – act. Because if the message is not heard early, the message gets louder and the problem grows!