The Benefit in Being Faithful

Spending time with friends is one of the best things about enjoying life. Recently, while we were with friends over the holiday period, I was given a vision about faithfulness.

I was shown just how powerfully good an encouraging time of connection with people can be.

I was shown how much soul-abundance experiences of friendship give; how fundamentally impactful a seriously good investment of time with other people is.

And I was shown how humanness is epitomised in such dynamics of connection that build remarkable intimacy, bearing the hallmarks of the safety of a ubiquitous trust.

In a word, faithfulness. The perfection possible as a state of relationship.

The best thing about faithfulness is it’s easy enough to do. But it does take consistent trustworthy behaviour over time.

Faithfulness is consistent trustworthiness. And better than that even is the halcyon feature of faithfulness that achieves the pinnacle of intimacy when conflict has been negotiated.

But that requires HUMILITY — and none of us ever master that! Humility enough to believe in the bigness of relationship over the smallness of the issues that would divide us.

If relationship faithfulness were the ascent of Everest, without conflict the relationship is just reaching base camp. But when a relationship survives conflict and faithfulness is intact, the peak is in sight. At the summit, the relationship has survived the potential perils of conflict, and faithful cooperation will get the relationship down the mountain to oxygenated safety.

Although all human relationships bear within them the constant possibility of moral failure, faithfulness doesn’t end when moral failure impinges to the point of hurt or even betrayal. Within relationships is the redemptive quality and capability of restoration after things have been broken.

Here are some ways where faithfulness is necessary if we’re to live the God-willed life well:

There’s faithfulness to God. No secret thing we do is unknown to God. God knows. Read Psalm 139 anytime lately? Faithfulness to God isn’t about being perfect and blameless. It’s about being honest.

Yes, that’s right, it’s how faithfulness is manifest — through confessing and repenting of deeds where we haven’t been faithful. God is faithful and just and forgives our transgressions and we’re cleansed of our unrighteousness as much as we acknowledge our fault (1 John 1:9). Faithfulness in our relationship with God is achieved when we’re honest about our unfaithfulness.

There’s faithfulness to others. Within relationships that last, for instance, within marriages or best-friend relationships, there is the characterisation of trustworthiness, which doesn’t preclude failure.

Faithfulness in relationships with others is much more about negotiating conflict successfully than having no conflict at all, especially where we might be tempted to avoid conflict.

This requires humility in both as each person ideally owns their contribution to conflict where it occurs.

Relationship perfection occurs, paradoxically, through bilateral confession of individual imperfections.

Determined diligence beats charismatic feats.

Quiet achievement meets, and faithfulness completes.

Relationships mature when both sides own their respective fault.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of any human relationship is its capacity for restoring what was previously damaged; trust and intimacy and faithfulness can ultimately grow through conflict.

There’s faithfulness to ourselves. Let’s talk about the fruit of self-control. How many Christians sin against their own bodies. I’ve been a typical Western-cultured binge-eater. It’s taken me many years to realise I can’t get away with being unfaithful to my body and to recognise what I need to faithfully do. There are myriads of examples where we’re challenged to be faithful stewards of ourselves.

Again, faithfulness is not particularly difficult; it’s tortoise-beating-hare consistency over time. Reliability beats charisma. Quiet achievement beats impressive feats.

There are some who cannot be faithful. Narcissists for one. Faithfulness, therefore, is the one reliable vital sign check on character. A faithful person, a person committed to self-honest reflection and regular repentance, overall is a safe person to be in relationship with.

Photo by Lukas Robertson on Unsplash