Faithfulness

A little time this morning to be still, to be quiet and listen again. An impression. There’s a word I don’t hear an awful lot in the course of everyday life: faithfulness. And yet, anything that really matters, anything that’s worth pursuing—cherishing—requires faithfulness. Faithfulness is that strong, patient quality that enables you to keep going when the way seems too long, when the body and mind become weary, when your emotional fuel tank is running on fumes and you just feel like giving up. Faithfulness is what gets you through it all.

Faithfulness has an irrational quality to it. The person who remains faithful in the face of so much personal and circumstantial opposition often seems crazy to others, even to oneself. Faithfulness feels risky. Humility makes this possible; the faithful person keeps going despite what others may think. They care not for something so contingent as reputation. To be faithful is to stand on a rock in a world made of sand, to turn your face to the wind that changes direction from day-to-day and would change you with it. Paradoxically, this is how faithfulness changes you.

The greatest things in life come to us by the way of faithfulness: lasting relationships, reconciliation, societal change, personal livelihood, mental innovation and material invention. It is certain that in all these endeavors one will become weary, reach a crisis point, feel it is easier to just turn back. Given that, faithfulness proves to be nothing short of an everyday miracle hiding in plain sight. A tribute this morning, this day…to faithfulness.

……………………

faithfulness

by troy cady

.

.

.

.

*Photo by Ani Kalleshi via Unsplash. Creative Commons license.

Thank you for reading. PlayFull is dedicated to helping people "play from the inside out." We invite you to like PlayFull on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

do not despise small beginnings

Do not despise small beginnings. A single seed became a verdant orchard. Every human life gestates and must pass through infancy before it can reach maturity. Relationship is built on simple, intent listening—a generous gesture that often goes unnoticed because it begins with a commitment to silence our own thoughts and words.

Respect small things. Don’t underestimate the potential inherent in hidden faithfulness or the kind word spoken to someone you may never see again. Patience compounds interest. Relatively speaking, a hug is only momentary but to the runaway who returns home and is embraced by her family again, it means eternal welcome. How refreshing it feels when we make a habit of saying to ourselves each day, “What new small thing can I learn today?” How often I forget to just keep learning, to stay open—yet, how good it is to do so! An apology can be short and sweet, but how hard it is for us to do just that small thing sometimes—yet what a difference it makes.

You never know what wondrous music might break forth by just starting with a few notes. Play the notes you can and trust that, when the time comes, you’ll know what to play next as you open yourself…to play—such a small beginning, such a small grace, the soul’s way of smiling.

…………..

do not despise small beginnings

by troy cady

*photo by Jelleke Vanooteghem on Unsplash

..........................

We hope you found these thoughts encouraging and we'd love the chance to encourage you more--so we invite you to like PlayFull on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for reading. 

It Takes Time

Some years ago I had the privilege of coming alongside a friend who was struggling with an addiction. I was his sponsor. We didn’t call it that—and our friendship did, in fact, go beyond such a formal arrangement—but that is basically what I was for a season.  We decided it’d be good for him to check in with me every day for three months for purposes of accountability.

Yes, every day. We decided the best time to do this would be in the morning, before the craziness of each day’s activities would begin to creep in. This would enable me to pray with him each morning for strength to face the day and it would help him be prayerfully mindful of the issue for which he was seeking accountability. Since he lived some distance away from me, it was not practical to see each other face-to-face every day so we agreed that a daily phone call would suffice.

About five days into this arrangement we began to grow tired of it, partly because it seemed like our daily check-ins were nothing more than a silly formality. He’d ring me at a certain time, we’d say good morning to each other, and then I’d ask him how the previous day went. Was there anything he needed to share?

He’d say, “No, it was a good day” and then he’d add a few details that were unique to that day.

I’d say, “Okay, that’s great.” We’d pray and I’d remind him:  “I’ll keep praying for you today, buddy. Call me if you need to talk with someone or have someone pray with you, okay?”

“Okay, sure thing.”

I can’t remember the exact day this happened, but on about day six, seven or eight, he let out a little chuckle when he called and we started our small verbal interchange.

I said, “This seems silly, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s okay, but you better get used to it because I gave you my word that I’d touch base with you every morning for three months and I intend to keep it. So, you can think it’s silly and routine and meaningless but that doesn’t matter because, come hell or high water, I will be faithful to this. I’m not going away, I’m not stopping, I’m not giving up, no matter how you feel about it. And don’t look for some tingly life-altering epiphanies every day, either. That’s not what this is. It isn’t sexy, it won’t be profound and you won’t feel thrilled every day. It’s just about keeping our word. That’s it.”

The rub of faithfulness is that it cannot be completed in five days. Faithfulness takes a long time. But somehow we expect we should get it down more quickly. Some things in life just take time. You don’t get the beauty of a 63-year-marriage in the space of 15 years. That never happens. Houses are not built out of cards.  

Have you ever noticed the best things in life take time and hard work? The things most worth having are worth fighting for. We are more prone to throw things away when there is no sacrifice involved in getting them.

And we should never expect to do great things when we grow discontent with faithfully doing small things. No adult has ever reached maturity by skipping childhood. Some things take time. Faithfulness is one of those things. If we try to tie her up neatly, nice and tight, we’ll only discover we’ve bound her ankles—and she will lead us nowhere but flat on our face.

Don’t try to finish that work all-in-a-day. Take time to be faithful. It’s worth it!

...............................

Follow PlayFull on Twitter and/or like us on Facebook! Thanks for reading, friends!