7. Faith/Faithfulness
| "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' (Matthew25:23) |
"Faithfulness" on its own could be understood as "reliable", and, while this is a good quality to have, reliability on its own is simply an admirable character trait. To fully define faithfulness as a fruit of the Spirit would be to say that it is reliability that springs from faith...
In the parable of the talents, three servants are given money to look after. One of them, motivated by fear of the master, does the bare minimum. He hides the coin and returns it. Eager to simply stay out of trouble. The other two servants, called "good" and "faithful" by their master, have taken a risk as they worked to make the money grow. We might call the last servant "reliable" - he returned the money and took no risks. The other two had more than fear of the master. They believed in the happiness that he would share. They believed in his goodness. They believed that it was worth taking a risk for him.
They were more than reliable. They were faithful, in the sense that they were diligent, reliable, trustworthy, but they also had faith: They believed in the goodness and generosity of the master and so they took risks so that they could give their best.
I like being reliable. I like delivering on my promises. But reliability goes to the level of faithfulness when I give my all and then some more because I believe in the goodness of my Heavenly Father.
