When I imagine a life of faithfulness to God, I tend to think that I should have it all together. I would be the most loving mother and wife and on the rare occasion that my children needed to be disciplined, I would know exactly what to do every time. I imagine that I would never have to rewash clothes because I forgot them in the washing machine overnight and my house would always be clean and no spills would happen on a floor that was just mopped that day. I imagine that a life of faithfulness to God feels like all is right in the world and I can climb into bed for a good night’s rest with fresh sheets on the bed.
The problem with this life I imagine is that it isn’t actually me being faithful to God. The life I imagine is a life where I believe that I don’t need God. The life I imagine is a life where I think I have everything under control, without God. That is not what being faithful to God looks like. Jesus told us that in this life we will have trouble (John 16:33). Part of why we have trouble in this life so that we can understand that we can’t do anything without God. A life lived in faithfulness to God should feel like we have no idea what we are doing. It should feel out of control and messy. It should feel that way because we are sinners living in a world of sin. It is messy. It is a sinful world.
This passage out of Luke expresses it well:
Luke 18:9-14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told them this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself.: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance. he would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
What I see in this passage is the Pharisee giving a list of things that he does well. Unfortunately, that looks pretty similar to how I imagine a life of faithfulness should be like. I imagine that a life of faithfulness is about what I do well. Let’s look at the tax collector. He wouldn’t even look up to heaven. He knew his place in relation to God. True faithfulness to God looks like humility. It looks like giving God the credit for the things we do well and it looks like relying on Him for everything that we need.
Faithfulness looks like starting our days on our knees admitting to God that we are incapable of going through this life without Him. We aren’t supposed to spend our lives building our resumes. We are supposed to spend our lives giving glory to God. It gives glory to God when we faithfully discipline our children even when we don’t know what we are doing. We give glory to God when we continue to mop the floor when spill after spill of this life happen. We give glory to God when instead of keeping count of all the things we do for our families, we ask for God’s help and continue to give more and more. We give glory to God when we see the mess around us and ask God how we can serve faithfully even when it doesn’t feel good.
This passage out of Rachel Jankovic’s book You Who summarizes it well:
“Years ago, when my parent’s purchased some land, Dad bought a field and brush mower. It was huge and self-powered. It could mow over sapling three inches thick. It was a beast. And when you mowed with it, you felt yourself jogging along behind a thing that was well out of control as you did your noble best not to mow down the orchard. I have thought of this many times as an example of what faithfulness feels like. It 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 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.”
Here are four ways to remain faithful:
SurrenderÂ
We need to remember who we are in relation to God. We are sinful human beings and God is the powerful creator of the universe. God does not sin. God knows everything and is infallible. That is not the case with us. We should not ever think that we know better than God. We need to surrender all of our plans to God and know that He will carry them out for our good and for His glory.
Repent
Whenever we find ourselves building our own resumes and thinking we can live this life on our own, we need to turn back and ask God to forgive us for our pride and misguided ideas. The beauty of the gospel is that Jesus is for everyone. It doesn’t matter what family you are born into, what sins you have committed, or where you were born on this planet, if you will humble yourself and repent of your sins, they will be forgiven. Jesus is not for those who can look good on this earth, Jesus is for everyone. Jesus will always accept anyone who comes to Him with a humble heart and repents of their sins.
Pray
I would love to say that all of my days begin on my knees asking God to help me through each day, but I can’t. The days that do begin like this are days where I know that I am in alignment with God and His plan for my life. They are days that I hope will continue to increase. Prayer has a way of changing us. God isn’t waiting impatiently in Heaven for us to pray to Him. God uses prayer as a gift to us. We are gifted with the ability to talk to the Creator and that will change us from the inside out. Prayer is a gift to us and we should most definitely be using it.
Rest in God’s Love and Plan
The final way to live faithfully is to rest in God. This doesn’t mean taking a day off of work or going on a vacation, it means while we are in the thick of our days we can know that God has a plan for our lives. We can know that He has a plan and He is taking care of us. We don’t have to have anxiety and fear because we are not in charge, God is. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. (Matthew 11:30)
Little by little, God is changing us. He is sanctifying us day by day and the process doesn’t always feel good. We may think we are on the wrong track because things are feeling unpleasant, but God’s plan won’t always feel pleasant. When we surrender to Him, we have freedom. I pray that we will all continue to be faithful until the end, even when it doesn’t feel good.