I am a loner. I have always been a loner and the very nature of my being is to be a loner. I would be perfectly content to have a little cabin in the woods with nothing more than a room full of books, reams of paper to write upon, no cell phone, no TV, no radio and no one else to talk to. Solitude is a welcome thing to me.
Maybe you are a loner by nature, by choice or by circumstance. Maybe you have no one in your life to talk to or be accountable to or to teach you or to encourage you. Maybe you like being alone. I understand that completely. However, this was never God’s plan. From the very beginning God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God created animals and fish and birds and gave them to Adam to name and there was not a single one of them found that was an adequate companion to man. So God, in His infinite goodness created woman to be with man, and hence marriage was born.
There is, however, among men and women an innate need to have fellowship with a member of the same sex. This is an important relationship that God also approves of and encourages. There is a need to be able to communicate with another who shares your same struggles, who understands the issues associated with that particular sex and who can be a confidant. We need to have people we trust who will be honest and open with us and tell us “how it is” and hold our feet to the fire when we stray off the right path.
While I am, by nature, a loner, I have the need to have fellowship with other men. My wife has a need to have fellowship with another woman. We need a good friend who will challenge us and share our struggles and pray for us and teach us and listen to us and to love us and one that we can love in return. Accountability is a good and necessary thing. We must have others who can have open access to our lives and can see us objectively rather than subjectively as we see ourselves. They can point us back to the right path and encourage us in the race we all run as followers of Christ.
This concept of accountability is seen throughout the pages of scripture in both the Old and the New Testaments. Men were seldom left alone to carry out the work God had for them. When men are left alone and unaccountable they usually stray from the right path and find themselves needing the correction of the Lord.
Think back to the great men of the faith-- Moses, Joshua, David, Paul, and many others. They each had someone working alongside them to help them, encourage them, and to keep them accountable. Moses had Joshua who was waiting for him when he came down the mountain and who stood by Moses during difficult decisions and during heated battles and was eventually Moses’s successor. Joshua had Caleb who was comrade in arms and they shared a common bound of having faith in the power of God in conquering the inhabitants of the Promised Land. David had Jonathan, the son of the man who desired to have David killed. They loved each other with the deepest love two men can have for one another. They had a bond that went beyond friendship and brotherhood. Paul had Barnabas to accompany him on his missionary journeys. Barnabas shared in Paul’s sufferings and encouraged Paul and worked alongside him and supported him and kept him accountable.
Accountability is such an important component of the Christian walk. Left to ourselves we can become discouraged and deceived. On our own we can become complacent and dry. When we live a loner life-style it is easy to fall into sin and try to keep it secret. When we have another person in our life that has full access to our heart, we can be refreshed and encouraged and challenged and rebuked and restored and loved. We can pray for one another and share our struggles and sins and successes and failures and just build one another up.
Recently I have felt such a need for good, solid male companionship. I work in a male-dominated environment where almost no one shares my faith or my convictions. Conversations around the water cooler often stray into the profane and immoral and I have to remove myself from them. I just need a good friend or two to talk to and to pray with and to be encouraged by and to encourage and challenge them in return. So, instead of just waiting around for it to happen, I took action and sought out a couple men who I knew were headed in the same direction I was going spiritually and who would be willing to keep me accountable and who would welcome accountability to them as well. It has been such a blessing in my life. I know I am a loner, but to have these men who will call me or email me or text me and just encourage me, tell me where I am going wrong, pray for me and who will allow me the privilege of doing likewise for them has made such a difference in my Christian walk.
I want to encourage each of you reading this today to take the time and diligent effort to find that one or two people who share your common goal of becoming Christ-like and who will agree to partner with you in accountability. Don’t be a Christian loner. The one who tries to walk alone tends to get lost on the journey. Pray for your accountability partner, open up to them and let them know where you are struggling and where you need help. Challenge one another from the Word and work together to both become stronger.
Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” There are sometimes sparks in the sharpening process and being shaped and sharpened can involve pain and change, but the end result is glorious. If you are a man struggling in your walk, pray for and seek out another godly man to be accountable to. If you are a woman and want to become the woman God has called you to be and just need someone to come alongside you; don’t try to do it alone. Find that person who will listen and pray and talk and challenge and encourage and call you out when they need to. Chances are that the person you ask is looking for someone to keep them accountable as well.
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