Galatians 5:22 — Faithfulness
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!”
God is faithful when we are not. Let’s start there. That means that when we fail, give up, reject God and otherwise make a total mess (often blaming God for it), he does not walk away. Think about that for a minute. What person in your life has taken every bit of garbage you have thrown at them and stuck around anyway? Probably no one. And if they did, it was most likely an unhealthy codependency that kept them there rather than a deep and enduring faithfulness.
Psalm 119:90 describes the level of God’s faithfulness:
“Your faithfulness extends to every generation, as enduring as the earth you created.”
We feel pretty proud of ourselves when we are faithful for about a minute, but God’s faithfulness extends to every generation. Every. Generation. As enduring as the earth. Most of us Christians are a bit antsy for Jesus to hurry up and come back already, but God’s faithfulness isn’t on a tight timeline. Day in, day out, every morning he starts over with fresh mercy for you (see Lamentations 3:23).
Here’s your freedom for today: you can pause to commune with the most faithful God. Just sit and don’t worry about saying anything. He’s happy to see you and he’ll sit as long as you will. I imagine waking up in the morning, a slow awareness of the world around me. I open my eyes and blink a few times. And God is there to meet me, just saying hi again. With a present for me, fresh life and new mercy for me to drink in. If God’s faithfulness doesn’t get worn out or tired or impatient and he’s perfectly content to wake up with you to a new day and hand you some more grace and mercy, what does that mean for you today? What mess is he happily willing to fix again in your life? What imperfections and character defects is he slowly and faithfully working out?