Accountability

I've been thinking about this idea of accountability since my small group talked about it last week during our weekly Bible study. We're reading this book called Forgotten God and during our discussion, Seth asked us what it would mean if the church truly lived out what the Spirit was telling them and what it would mean for discipleship and accountability. I mentioned that if we were truly spirit led, then it would mean that people wouldn't be afraid to be real with each other or to be completely open about what's going on in our lives. Instead, we let our fears, anxieties, and insecurities about being judged hold us back from sharing what is truly going on in our lives.

During college, I had great accountability. For two years, Megan called me every Friday morning or afternoon depending on my class schedule and we did an over the phone Bible study and shared our hearts with each other. The geunine caring and accountability was so good for me while I was gone. I had someone to keep me in check about my actions and thoughts, someone I knew was praying for me throughout the week.

Somehow, since graduating almost two years ago (yikes! Where did the time go?!?), that accountability has fallen away. She and I were discussing this last night on the way to meet up with some friends to go bowling and she mentioned that she wished we could be accountability partners but that it probably wasn't the best idea to do so. At first, I couldn't figure out why because who better to be your accountability partner than your best friend? After all, that's what best friends are for right?

And then I realized that being best friends is precisely why we couldn't be accountability partners. We're already too close. Adding in that added expectation is too much for our friendship. Adding in that emotional piece is too much for us. There are some things your best friend just shouldn't know. Even when people say they tell their best friends everything, in reality, we truly don't. There are certain aspects of ourselves that we hide even from the people we consider ourselves the closest to because we know what their stance on those issues are and we know how they'll react to it.

So when it comes down to it then, how do we go about having that accountability in our lives? If you can't have your best friend as your accountability partner, then who do you hold yourself accountable to (other than God)? Who can you be completely open and real with and know that that person is going to love you and pray for you regardless of what you think or what you've done?

This subject is one I'm truly curious about. There are certain areas of my life that I struggle with, areas I find myself holding back from everyone because of how I know they'll react or how I think they'll react. However, the more I hold back, the more I find myself struggling day to day to work through these issues because I have no one to hold me accountable, no one to pray for me, and no one to ask me how I'm doing.

Writing is usually my outlet but my journal and my blog can't exactly pray for me. I need someone I can sit down with once a week and just be real with. I want to be able to pour out my heart and have someone go over Scripture and pray with me and hold me accountable for my thoughts and actions.

I know I need to hold my own self accountable as well, but there's only so much I can do alone. I guess I just want the reassurance of knowing that even if they don't completely understand, they can at least pray with me and for me and help to remind me of the promises of God's Truth, even when I struggle to remember them myself.

What are other's opinions on this? Who are you accountable to? How close is too close for accountability partners? Should it be someone of the same sex or can males and females be accountability partners?

I'm so curious about this because I can really feel God calling me to start being accountable to someone in my life and I'm trying to figure out who the best person is to ask to be that person for me. All I know is I can't do this on my own so it's time to be real with someone. I just have to figure out who.