Daily Journal: 18 October

Faithfulness

and Commitment

We can raise a “Hallelujah!” when we have good news, good opportunities, good fortune. And rightly so. But faithfulness and commitment isn’t reflected in good fortune. It is mostly reflected during misfortune and demise.

Commitment

Ruth 1:16 (NIV)

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.

Ruth was choosing to travel to an unknown land with the mother of her deceased husband. Her commitment to her mother-in-law surpassed even the expectations of her day. Ruth didn’t know what her faithfulness and commitment to Naomi would ultimately mean but she addressed her conviction in the moment and committed herself to it.

Ruth became part of the lineage of Jesus Christ. If she hadn’t followed her convictions to go with Naomi to Bethlehem, she would never have become the great-grandmother to King David, or the ancestor to Jesus Christ. Her commitment caused her establishment in the most important family line in history - and she never knew.

Commitment isn't consoled by what we see. It is a force of conviction.

Faithfulness

Matthew 16:8-10 (TLB)

Jesus knew what they were thinking and told them, “O men of little faith! Why are you so worried about having no food? Won’t you ever understand? Don’t you remember at all the five thousand I fed with five loaves, and the basketfuls left over? Don’t you remember the four thousand I fed, and all that was left?

So often we see what we don’t have. We forget what we have had in the past and the faithfulness God has demonstrated there. We forget He does not change. He was faithful in the past, He is faithful in the present good and bad circumstances, and He will be faithful again in the future.

Our faithfulness needs to be dependent on the knowledge of God's faithfulness, not our circumstances.

Naomi didn’t perceive the faithful hand of God on her life when they were returning to her homeland. When Naomi and Ruth arrived in Bethlehem, so much had changed, and all Naomi could see was what she had lost.

Ruth 1:19-20 (NIV)

and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?” “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. 

We understand Naomi’s devastation, having lost her husband and both of her sons. But even before that, she had left behind her community and other family, her safety net, in order to pursue survival with her husband. Things went from bad to worse and she was severely tested.

She would end up being able to see the faithful hand of God on her life but she would never know the reason why she had needed to go to Canaan during the famine in Israel. She would never know it was ultimately to collect Ruth and bring her back to Bethlehem to be part of the line of Christ. Which is another astonishment. God chose Ruth. A Moabite. He called her to be Naomi's comfort and strength when her family had gone, and God rewarded Ruth in a way she would never realise at the time.

Faithfulness is about perseverance through devastation, and the character that is built in the process. We don’t see the measure our commitment will take. But faithfulness and commitment will ultimately bring about God’s greater plan, even when we may never see it.

What are you being called to be faithful and commit yourself to?

Lord God, you are the faithful One. You chose us. Help us to commit to what it is you have called us to, and prove ourselves faithful to you.