One night after work, I was walking home and overheard this:

Drug dealer 1 [speed walking towards Drug dealer 2]: Yo!
Drug dealer 2: Yo.
Drug dealer 1: Hurry up! You can’t do that. You gotta be ON POINT.

Me: Excuse me, I couldn’t help but hear your conversation. Might I suggest some motivational interviewing techniques to encourage behaviour change? Modern management and parenting principles recommend that positive reinforcement is helpful. Nagging alone is probably less effective.

Psych nah! I didn’t say that. Instead, I probably said something dumb like, “Did you know people can see your underwear when you sag your pants like that?”

The exchange between Dealer 1 and Dealer 2 struck me. The Lord gave me a glimpse of (…drumroll…) accountability!

One might think that since I work at a Christian Health Center, perhaps our accountability system would be solid. Like, brothers and sisters in Christ constantly speaking the truth in love to one another, a perpetual sharpening of iron on iron. Or perhaps we wouldn’t need any accountability, since we all are serving the Lord with joy 24/7, and therefore, we would always be ON POINT.

Reality is, I am easily distracted at work. I am always behind in my clinical notes, not to mention administrative emails. Part of my new year’s resolution was to quit gossiping, which has been a struggle every 10 minutes. Sometimes I have zero compassion (“Fine! Just eat your candy! I don’t care!”). And, I won’t even get into non-ideal inner city dentistry along with my rationale/excuses of delivering imperfect dentistry in people’s mouths.  My coworkers and I get annoyed with each other. However, too often we do not call each other out on non-ideal behaviour/attitudes/thoughts, because none of us want to explode or say anything out of emotion, sometimes we think not saying anything is giving grace, and sometimes we are too tired to love each other via constructive conflict.

I know for Dealer 1 and Dealer 2, accountability and job performance might be a matter of life or death – physical death – due to the prevalence of gun violence in the subculture of drug dealing.

When I fail to be on point in loving God or loving my neighbours, there is a risk to my (and their) spiritual survival. I am thankful for Jesus who is always on point, due to His perfect nature, but also because He loves me, someone in need of His righteousness.