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