Being Faithful

Faithfulness is a relational quality that is the hallmark of all that is right and noble in engaging with others.  Even if it is a case sticking to someone who is abusing because of the quality of the individual there is something to be sadly admired.  Faithfulness is not just reserved to marriages it is something applied to any level of relationship with familial or not.

This is a quality that sets God out as being so unique because His faithfulness is sure.  More than the metronome setting keeping steady beat of time, God can be relied on to remain true to His Word and true to His relationships.  God’s faithfulness is not a characteristic of grudging dependability, but of loving kindness in all situations.

This is an aspect that often convicts me when I consider my own record on faithfulness even on the basic daily level.  The nature of that conviction, however, does not lead to self-pity and utter despair.  It leads to understanding more how to practice faithfulness.  How does God still remain faithful even when I have been faithless?  What is it about His character that makes it possible to still love those who are His enemies?  How can I then access that characteristic to overcome bouts of faithlessness in everyday living?  It is much more than a mental exercise or the power of the will. It comes down again to the motives of my heart and how well protected it is in its soft status following the God-ordained heart-transplant.

It is not impossible to remain faithful – previous to acknowledging Jesus as Lord I would consistently endeavour to be faithful to my gratification.  Without hesitation and automatically when the opportunity arose and often instigating such opportunity to arise, I would satiate those desires to bring about apparent satisfaction, only to find it fleeting and insubstantial.  What I experience now I know is that in remembering where my heart is, that same automatic, no-hesitation impulse can be just as much God-directed as it was self-directed which enables true loving acts, thoughts and desires to others.  That is possible, but it is not constant.  I am not consistent.  I am consistently inconsistent.

Yet God remains faithful.

Indeed that faithfulness is reassuring without erring to complacency.  That faithfulness is comforting.  That faithfulness points to a time when the battle will be over.  That faithfulness points to the place where the conflict will not even be a passing thought as it is far overwhelmed with eternal embrace of the faithful One.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd