no requirement to stick with someone who might bring harm or destruction into your life. But, when God brings people into our lives and when the bonds of affection in whatever form have been born, we are called to stick with those loved ones through thick and thin. In the marriage service, we ask a couple if they will stay loyal in all kinds of circumstances—“for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.”17 There are things that certainly test that loyalty, but we are called to stand that test of time.
The second rabbit trail would be our loyalty to our faith. We express that in all kinds of ways, but in the same way our relationships can be tested, so can our relationship with our Church, and frankly, even our faith. Some years ago, a friend of mine was having a conversation with a Russian Christian who was staying with a family in Birmingham, Alabama, for a semester of study abroad. One day the young student said, “What I have found fascinating in your culture is that people seem to have no problem changing from one church to another, but they would never change allegiance to their football team!”
Of course, in a word, this comes down to faithfulness. St. John Chrysostom once preached, “Faithfulness in little things is a big thing.”18 So true, do you not think?
Ruth set a wonderful standard for familial faithfulness and for faithfulness to God. The road she took is worth considering. If a football team is worthy of your devotion, would you not agree that those whom God has poured into your life deserve much more?
When it comes to our allegiance to God, and to the Church, what better model than Jesus, about whom Oswald Chambers once wrote, “Watch where Jesus went. The one dominant note in His life was to do his Father’s will. His is not the way of wisdom or of success, but the way of faithfulness.” As our forebears would say, “Amen, so be it.”
Football games are great. I have sat through more than I can count and cheered my teams on like the next guy. But the exuberance some show about their favorite sports team begs the question as to whether they can stir their hearts with a like—or better yet, more intense—passion for the loved ones in their lives? For their God? Does any of this speak to where you are today? Might Ruth’s faithfulness inspire you to consider your own? What might you do differently today to be more faithful to your relationships? To your God?
A Prayer for Faithfulness to Friends . . .
Help me, O God, to be a good and true friend:
to be always loyal and never to let my friends down,
Never to talk about them behind their backs in a way
which I
would not do before their faces;
never to betray a confidence or talk about the things
about which
I ought to be silent;
always to be ready to share everything I have;
to be as true to my friends as I would wish them to
be to me.
This I ask for the sake of Him who is the greatest
and truest of all
friends, for Jesus’s sake.
Amen.
—William Barclay, d. 1978
A Prayer for Faithfulness to God . . .
Now it is You alone that I love,
You alone that I follow,
You alone that I seek
You alone that I feel ready to serve,
because You alone rule justly.
It is to Your authority alone that I want to submit.
Command me, I pray, to do whatever You will,
But heal and open my ears
that I may hear Your voice.
Heal and open my eyes
that I may see Your will.
Drive out from me
All fickleness,
that I may acknowledge You alone.
Tell me where to look
that I may see You,
and I will place my hope in doing Your will.
Amen.
—St. Augustine, d. 430
17 “The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage,” in the Book of Common Prayer
18 Died in 407.
Speak . . . ForYour Servant Is Listening . . .
. . . And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
—1 Samuel 3:10
There is something about the sound of leaves rustling in this season of the year—do you not agree? It is not the same sound wind makes when it blows through during winter when there are no leaves, spring when the leaves are nimble and small, or in the summer when they are full-grown. There is something different in the fall—have you listened lately?
Listening is hard—the world is full of distractions (when is the last time you looked at your cell phone?) and full of sounds (is your television on? radio?). We hear many things on any given day, but how do we listen for the voice of God? One way is to make the space and time for that to happen. Samuel did that.
1 Samuel was probably written by an unnamed author between 1100 and 1000 bce. Most of its thirty-one chapters are about Israel’s twelve tribes uniting under one king. How did that come about? Well, it happened because Samuel listened.
The whole of the story is found from 1 Samuel chapters 1–3.
