Faithfulness is the discipline of relationships.  Being discipline, it is often beheld with dread and resentment, but it is a wellspring of life.  Who doesn't want an employee who always delivers?  A co-worker who never slacks?  A friend who never forgets?  A lover who never abandons?  A mother who always nurtures?  A father who always leads?  A Christ who always saves?  Faithfulness is often one of the less visible Fruits of the Spirit, partly because blindness thrives unchecked, but also because it involves our hidden, or partially hidden, lives.  Do we earn our paycheck when no one is looking?  Honor our friends' reputations in conversations they don't attend?  Exclusively love our spouses even in the deepest chambers of our hearts?  Pour affection into children who will probably not remember it?  Privately test and train ourselves so to be strong for others, when the time (daily) comes?  Live for Christ when there are no other Christians around?
     Prayer and fasting are among the greatest opportunities for private faithfulness (which is a commanded thing.)  Fasting doesn't make its way into sermons much, these days, but some acts of compassion are not possible without it.
     Than there is visible faithfulness, which is immediately delightful!  Old friends deserve letters and visits (and homemade pizzas), and are merry to receive them.  Understanding that is had only from laborious communication relieves the misunderstood from frustration and delivers them to peace.  In regularity, worshipful Christians gather to Christ's glory.
     Faithfulness, in its beautifully dull, day-in and day-out march, pays little heed to cooperation.  Just as the faithfulness of a runner ignores the comfort or soreness of the legs, so faithfulness tramples the worthiness or unworthiness of the neighbor.  It is so often through faithfulness that Christians lead others to Christ.  Faithfulness, though often invisible or easy to ignore, grows in the strength of meekness that melts the hardest of hearts.  And I would not at all be surprised to one day, at least in Heaven, hear the testimony of a man, "I came to love Him simply because, looking at my life experience, I knew that I had always received satisfaction for my wants and needs, even those beyond my attention."

Proverbs 10:17, Matthew 6:1-4; 17:18-21; 18:20, 1 Timothy 6:11-12, 1 Thessalonians 5:11-12, 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15

How easily we let lowly speech flow out of our mouths.  Why is it we feel we need to express our dislike of things in order for our conversations to be enjoyable?  Those times in our chats when silence comes unexpectedly are not evil or tragic situations.  Certainly, however, complaining about the background music, or our daily workload, or our desire for sleep, or the government, or worse yet, our annoyance with other people, just for the sake of having noise instead of static, will surely make the situations evil.  Idle words, which are eager to report, tend to linger, at least in our moods, and rudely take over what belongs to thanksgiving.

Each human is sensitive to one thing or another at this point or that, and we never know who we might offend spouting out disapprovals which needn't leave our private thoughts.  If there are times when nothing can be spoken of constructively, then perhaps there are times when we ought to be silent.  Silence can be constructive, so deeply that it seems a bit restraining to label it with such an industrious word as constructive.  Our talk tends to be industrious, building this or building that, gaining grounds for approval, or pleasure, or a good time, so much so that we can trample all over someone else's actually meaningful work, or reputation, or joy, without even noticing.  All this, and there isn't even a shortage of "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable... excellent or praiseworthy."  Are we so void of subject matter that is praiseworthy?

Fear is an enemy here, fear that our conversations- our lives- are not lively enough.  So, in addition to complaints, we throw in lies.  Little lies that make the stories of our life experiences more entertaining are absolutely harmless, we convince ourselves.  But there is nothing good to be had in nurturing a distrust of what life- what God- has given us to share.  Were we not saved by the Christ of Man?  Were we not born a second time?  Are we not called to the far corners of the Earth, to share the Gospel?  Is not every crust of bread and sip of water a chance to give glory to God?  Are we not growing into the union with the Father that Christ has?  Are we not headed to eternal paradise, where every tear will be wiped away, and the streets are made of gold, where there is no sun, but our light is our King?  Honestly, are our lives so dull that our talk must include cuts and fibs?

 

James 3:1-12, Proverbs 22:10-11, Ecclesiastes 5:2-3, Song of Songs 2:15, Philippians 4:8, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15, 1 Timothy 4:12, Titus 2:7-8