day 2780: Herd Accountability

“If the entire Israelite community sins by violating one of the Lord’s commands, but the people don’t realize it, they are still guilty.

We are going to hear a lot this week about “Herd Immunity”.  I’m not a doctor of course, but I can understand that populations of animals (extended to humans in this case) will gain immunity to something once exposed and it passes through the herd.  It follows with “herd mentality”, which we see every day when someone starts something and everyone follows.  We pay people to do this, they are called “social media influencers”.  But, even before we had technology we were prone to follow others more blindly than we should because it is human nature to be exposed to someone who reflects back to us our thoughts, fears, desires, needs and values and then we take to them, and end up following those people.  It’s natural and it’s also risky.  For when the herd (team, company, organization) all fall into lockstep for the right things, we see alignment.  When we do so for the wrong, we see bad things happen like malpractice, fraud, collusion, conspiracy and theft.  And it is then, that we (the herd) become guilty by association.  It is upon each of us, personally, to stand strong against the herd and to be sure that we are taking personal accountability in everything we think, do and say.

From one of the earliest books of the Bible we see that we are held accountable to each other as part of being together.  Let’s remember this as we work with others.  If each and every person on a team or in a company were to take accountability for the team, imagine how strong and fortified the team would be?  But, it starts with each of us personally first in making sure that we are strong, centered and grounded in Him so that we can play our part in keeping the herd accountable and best we can, immune, from those things that will tear us down and tear us apart.

Reference: Leviticus 4:13 (New Living Translation)