Faithfulness

Fruitful Motherhood: Faithfulness
By: Brittany Shields

Faithfulness (/ˈfāTHfəlnəs/): devotion, loyalty, constancy, dependability, reliability, honesty

“The faith that we possess indicates whether or not we truly remember God in his proper place. It proclaims whether or not we believe that He is the author of all creation and the cradle of all life with perfect authority over us and the world.” (Morrison)

Faith in anything only matters on the object of your faith, not on your faith itself. I have faith that when I sit down in the chair it won’t break underneath me. But the chair not breaking depends not on my faith but on the chair itself.

In the same way, our confidence is not in our faith but in the object of our faith— the person of God. And he is worthy of our faith.

We trust in the Lord and faithfully walk toward him knowing he is always at work in our lives.

God is Faithful

“For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.” (Ps 33:4-5)

“He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” (1 Thess 5:24)

“Consider for a moment the absolute necessity of the faithfulness of God. We are dependent upon His faithfulness for our final salvation (1 Cor 1:8-9), for deliverance from temptation (1 Cor 10:13), for ultimate sanctification (1 Thess 5:23), for the forgiveness of our sins (1 Jn 1:9), for deliverance through times of suffering (1 Pt 4:19), and for the fulfillment of our ultimate hope of eternal life (Heb 10:23). We can easily see that every aspect of the Christian life rests upon the faithfulness of God, and we have the assurance that ‘the Lord is faithful to all his promises.’ (Ps 145:13)” (Bridges)

You can’t read the Bible without seeing an example of God’s faithfulness.

In Bible times, people would often make agreements with each other. It was called ‘cutting’ a covenant. Animals would be cut in half and laid apart from each other to form an aisle. Participating parties would both walk down the aisle to solidify their agreement.

When God made a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, though, only God walked the aisle. God showed his faithfulness to Abraham and assurance in keeping his promises by essentially saying- ‘Abraham, you can’t keep your side of this covenant. You will fail. So I will take your place and bear the burden of both sides of this covenant so you know you can count on my word coming to pass.’

This was again shown on the cross. We are not enough. If our assurance of anything was left up to us and our upholding of any sort of behavior, we wouldn’t stand a chance. But Christ lived the life we never could and died the death we deserved and rose again, defeating sin and death.

This is our assurance. God is faithful when we are not.

“if we are faithless, he remains faithful.” (2 Tim. 2:13)

What confidence we can have in the Lord who will never leave us or forsake us!

Prune

When I was reflecting on what I would need to prune to make room for more faithfulness, it was a bit hazy to me.

Bridges says these things about the opposite of faithfulness:

“The opposite is corrupt or negligent. Corrupt being the opposite of honest or ethical, negligent being the opposite of careful, thoughtful, considerate.”

“If a person’s loyalty doesn’t ensure his faithfulness to another in times of stress, then he really isn’t a friend- he is simply using the other person to satisfy some of his own social needs.”

In this way, the things I would prune would be lying to my kids or manipulating them. I would prune negligence— if I am ignoring them for my own selfish benefit.

Our children are not there for appearances or to satisfy our need for fulfillment. We need to treat them as image-bearers, gifts from God that we have been blessed to steward. Not inconveniences. Raise them and love them, don’t use them.

These things are true, but when I think about where I personally struggle with faithfulness, I think about God’s faithfulness to me.

I had a hard time getting pregnant. There was a lot of waiting, a lot of tears and frustration. And then I finally got pregnant.

But I miscarried.

And I got very mad at God. I became bitter towards him. Why would he give life only to take it away? Doesn’t he love me? Doesn’t he want me to have children?

I stopped praying because I didn’t know how. I stopped worshiping because I didn’t feel like I could sing the words and mean them.

I spent a lot of months wrestling with God— trying to reconcile what I was feeling with what I knew God to be like. During this time, I became pregnant with who would become my oldest daughter.

There is much to say about this story that I can’t detail here, but God chose to show his faithfulness to me by giving me a little girl. Even when I was bitter, he was faithful.

I gave her the middle name Ruth because like the story of Naomi and Ruth, Naomi was bitter from losing her husband and sons but God remained faithful to her and Ruth and provided a husband for Ruth and an heir. Naomi was taken care of. He never forsook her even when she turned from him.

I know the God whom I serve. Though I don’t have all the answers to all my questions, I know him. And he is faithful. All my life I have seen it.

I need to prune bitterness and selfish blindness that measures God’s love by my circumstances. I can’t be faithful to God or exemplify faithfulness to my kids if my devotion to God is conditional to my feelings instead of his truth.

I need to prune my desire to control everything and worship the Author and true Authority of my whole life.

Grow

I wrote another blog post called 'Faithful with Little’ where I reflected on how sometimes we can feel like our lives are too small. We should be doing more for the kingdom. That, as a mom, the things we do often seem insignificant.

The quote that inspired that post was from Stefanie Boyles’ book Gospel-Centered Motherhood:

“Success is faithfulness to what God has placed before us.”

We just need to be faithful where God has us. The work of being a mom is not insignificant, we are raising eternal souls. We can trust God with what we’re doing. He is doing a good work and will bring it to completion. We need only to be faithful.

I like Rachel Jankovic’s description of faithfulness in her book You Who?: Why You Matter and How to Deal with It as she likens it to planting seeds in a field—

“[Faithfulness] feels like out of control. It feels like thanking God breathlessly for things that you think were a bad idea. It feels like struggling to keep up and being sure that you aren’t doing a great job. It feels like not really seeing the vision for what you are doing. And yet, whenever you look over your shoulder, where you expect to see the devastation of your poorly executed job, what you see instead is a beautiful garden growing. Faithfulness does not feel like what it is accomplishing.”

I think one way we grow in faithfulness is by continuing forward. It’s dutifully planting seeds and trusting God with the outcome even when it doesn’t feel meaningful.

It’s showing up every day where God has us.

It’s teaching our kids how to be faithful. We can do this by example when we show them that even when they are faithless, we are faithful. It’s pointing them to the assurance of Christ.

It’s making Bible-reading and prayer a priority. The Bible is the story of God’s faithfulness. Show them all the ways God has been faithful. Teach them to recognize God’s faithfulness even in the struggles and to pray to him and thank him for being there.

[I blogged more about this in my post ‘Tell Them a Story’.]

Faithfulness is not conditional. So we grow in faithfulness when we wake up every day and give our devotion to the Lord, regardless of our circumstances, putting him in the right place of authority of our lives.

Nourish and Fortify

Fruit doesn’t grow without nourishment and water.

Jesus is the light, the living water, and our daily bread.

Reflect on these verses from his word that will help us bear fruit.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1)

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Prov 3:5-6)

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest with much.” (Lk 16:10)

“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.” (Deut 32:4)

“[The Lord] will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure.” (Is 33:6)

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam 3:22-23)

“Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” (1 Pt 4:19)

Pray

Dear God,

Thank you for your faithfulness. Your Word is a gift to us, showing us all the ways you have preserved your people and proven faithful. I know my life won’t be easy and I’ll have to walk through some hard times, but knowing that you are at work and that you will be faithful to me gives me comfort as you walk through the valleys with me.

I’ve already witnessed your faithfulness in my life when I was bitter and mad at you. You never left me though I closed my eyes to you. Thank you for healing me and bringing life back to my heart. You have never failed me.

I am so glad I don’t have to rely on my own abilities as a mom or I would fail my kids daily. But you take the seeds that I plant and you will grow a beautiful garden. Your power and your love is great. Please take my imperfect acts and use them to bring glory to your name.

Help me to remember that little things are made great in the hands of a sovereign God. Give me faith when I lack. Help me continue forward when I want to sit down. Your faithfulness has paved a path before me, give me the confidence and strength to walk in it.

Let my kids see your faithfulness that they would trust in you too. May they seek to be faithful with little so they would be faithful with much.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen

Books Referenced:

The Fruitful Life: The Overflow of God’s Love Through You by Jerry Bridges

The Fruit of the Spirit: Walk by the Spirit, Bear His Fruit by Sarah Morrison (The Daily Grace Co.)

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