How My Ethics Were Formed
A funny thing happened on my way through life---my ethics were formed. Since I was born at an early age, and am now approaching 40, life has offered me several years and many situations through which my ethics were formed. Life is a continual growing experience, and I am open to changes. Therefore, my ethics may still be in the process of forming, but I believe the basic foundation has been laid. I know who I am in Christ, and I know what I stand for. In one simple word, I stand for Truth.
The foundation began when God gave me the privilege of being raised in a Christian home by parents who were solidly committed to their faith in Jesus Christ. Each day in our home was started with the family gathering for Bible reading and prayer together. I grew up very aware that I was accountable before God as well as to my parents. My tender conscience has become the root to all of my ethical decisions.
Attending church whenever the doors were open was our family lifestyle. Church became another area of accountability for me. My entire social life revolved around the church community. School dances and clubs had no appeal to me as they were not part of my world. The Christian atmosphere in my home and my church and social world sheltered me from the norms and values of the world. Perhaps this sheltering was not the best preparation for me to face the real world as an adult, but I still count it a privilege and a blessing to be raised in such an atmosphere. It gave me the solid foundation I needed when I did start facing reality in the world, and decisions and choices had to be made.
My constant exposure to the Christian lifestyle, and my tender conscience, led me to a public altar at the age of eleven to confess my sins and accept Jesus as my own personal Savior. What weighed heavily in my mind was the candy bar I had stolen several months earlier. I confessed this not only to Jesus, but also to my parents. My mother made me realize how important it was to make things right after confessing the wrong. It is called restitution. That has become one of my ethical codes. If I choose to do wrong, then to be forgiven I must go back and make it right if I possibly can. Knowing that has kept me from choosing to do wrong many times. Apologizing and admitting guilt can be very difficult and humbling.
What is astounding to me is that the very world which shaped me and protected me as a child, the church world, is the one in which I was broken and crushed. I came face to face with situations that made me evaluate life very closely. There came a point where I had to make a choice. Did I want to end life, which had become such a disappointment, or did I want to live life above the circumstances, walking on in faith as a child of God, totally dependent on Him and no longer focused on living to please mankind. I chose life. It was time to grow up, and live as Jesus would have me live.
As long as I lived at home I was responsible to live according to my parents' rules. When I married and moved to the south, I became a member of a church which based religious experience on rules. Some were rules I had grown up with and felt comfortable with, but some were much stricter. For several years I lived a life of fear that I would break someone's rules and displease them and God and be condemned to hell. Where was the "freedom" in Christ I heard about in songs and scripture? I found myself becoming very critical and bitter toward others. My attitudes were certainly not Christ-like as I became disillusioned by Christianity as portrayed by church leaders.
After living a few years in the conservative Bible Belt, we were transferred to the Chicago area by my husband's company. There we attended a very liberal church of our same denomination. In the south I was too liberal for the church, and in the north I was too conservative for the church. I upset the apple cart no matter where I was. The frustration of trying to please church leaders left me in a constant state of emotional upheaval. If I did 99 things right, and one thing that was not pleasing to someone, it was the one things that I was judged by. My sensitivity to people made this an issue that would try to destroy me again and again.
I was sick of trying to please people. I began to intensely hunger to live accountable to God alone and please Him, regardless of the opinion of man. In January of 1987 I asked God to set me free from what others thought of me as long as I had His approval. I found that when I pray a sincere prayer from the heart, God answers. He does not usually answer in the way I expect Him to, but His ways are best. My road to freedom has been a three year walk of faith, through the valley of failure, through the desert of depression, and on into the hill climbing of preparation for full time service to God. Today I am a free woman---free to live for Jesus, free to please God, free to serve others in love (Galatians 5:13: You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom in indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love.)
As a teenager I read the book and saw the movie "In His Steps". The theme of the story is living as Christ would live. In each decision the question should be asked, "What would Christ do?" That is the question I ask myself when facing ethical decisions. I am dependent upon His guidance.
The experiences I have come through have helped shaped my guidelines for living. Perhaps they could be called my ethical guidelines. In closing, I share them with you.
- Above all else, be honest. Be honest with your feelings, your words, and your actions. The conscience rests much easier when you know you have been honest, for deceit is destructive.
- Always part leaving the best impression you can, for it may be the last impression you leave. Life is so uncertain.
- Give everything over to God: the hurts, the anger, the frustration, the confusion, the "why's?". The only safe and sane place for it is in God's control. Otherwise, IT begins to control YOU, and guess who loses!
- Remember life is a moment by moment commitment. Determine to whom and to what you are committed, and live it moment by moment. God's will for you is not HERE or THERE, but it is simply that you be totally submitted, totally obedient to Him in each situation, each moment that comes your way.
- Continually practice the formula for JOY: J (Jesus first) O (others second) Y (yourself last).
