Learning Faithfulness

This morning I felt the Lord whispering to me about faithfulness once again. Faithfulness has been a reoccurring theme hightlighted by the Lord over the past year. It was the same this morning as I felt the gentle nudging from the Holy Spirit to purpose once again to pursue faithfulness in my life.

Psalm 37:3b says “Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” Cultivating a garden requires being on our knees and getting our hands dirty. We don’t just wake up one morning and have a garden. It takes work and planning and diligence. In the same way, cultivating faithfulness requires being on our knees before the Lord and getting our hands dirty – being faithful to do the little things the Lord has put before us to do. Likewise, we will never awake one morning to find we have suddenly developed faithfulness. No, it takes diligence, perseverance, trusting the Lord, and daily choosing to be faithful in the little things.

I long to remain faithful to the promise of the Lord in my heart. But I can only do that as I learn to be faithful in the little things. Faithful to love my family. Faithful to serve my family. Faithful to work with excellence. Faithful with my money. Faithful with my body. Faithful to obey the whisper of the Spirit. As I do these things, I learn faithfulness. Psalm 37 goes on to say: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” We like to jump ahead to the promise that the Lord will give us the desires of our hearts. But first we must trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. I see it as this: as we choose to trust, choose to obey, choose to flourish where God has planted us (even if we’d rather be somewhere else), choose to dwell in faithfulness, the God will give us the desires of our hearts.

I choose to be faithful to the promise of the Lord in my heart. But I also choose to be faithful with where I am now and what I have now. I choose to be content in my current position in life, ever laying my desires before the Lord. In this heart attitude I will learn faithfulness as I remain faithful in the little things.

I failed to remain faithful in this past year and I may fail again. But I carry this promise within me: though I am faithless, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself! He will be faithful to the promise even if I am not. How comforting! When my faithfulness fails, His remains.