What does it mean to be faithful? Mick and I were surprised to find some people don’t even know what the word means.
This week, as we do every week, Mick and I were teaching classes together at a local school. The word faithful came up in one of the activities and Mick and I were astounded to find not one child in that class knew what the word meant. These were 9-10 year olds who asked us ’what does that word mean?’
So we ended up explaining to them that being faithful means someone who you can trust, who you can rely on, someone who is not going to keep changing all the time. The dictionary definition says ‘loyal, trustworthy,’ and ‘able to be trusted.’
It saddened me to think children these days have no concept of the word faithful. Then I thought that perhaps it’s because the quality is not valued these days as it ought to be. Children don’t see faithfulness demonstrated.
They don’t see parents being faithful to each other in a marriage relationship. They don’t see parents being faithful often to their responsibilities as parents either because their children are handed over to others to care for, so they can get on with what is most important to them- their careers.
It’s a sad comment on society. As marriage partners and as parents we need to get back to demonstrating faithfulness in our everyday lives. Sometimes it might be a something that drastically affects our lives like staying faithful to our marriage vows despite emotions and temptation to do otherwise.
It might be a simple thing like keeping our promises whether it is our spouse or to our children. It means demonstrating faithfulness in our relationships, not just our marriage relationship but friendships as well. How are children going to learn about faithfulness unless it is demonstrated and unless it is talked about?
Join me tomorrow for more of what it means to faithful.
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