I thought I was done with my series on faithfulness, but there’s one more thing I think needs to be said, and it’s important:
Being faithful does not mean you have to be perfect.
It doesn’t mean you always do it right, or that you do it 100% of the time, that you never have bad days or need a break.
I’m convinced that God doesn’t look at our actions as much as He looks at our hearts. And having a faithful heart doesn’t mean you’re always consistently successful at being faithful and obedient in some area or task. Having a faithful heart means you desire to live for God more than for yourself, and being a faithful steward means that you keep doing your best to serve Him in all of your brokenness and fallen-ness. And you don’t let the bad days completely derail you from getting back up and trying your best.
Because that’s all He asks. He knows that we’re fallen, and broken, and cursed, and made out of dirt. He knows we’re not capable of being perfect or doing life perfectly. That’s why he sent His son to be perfect for us, so we could live under the protection of His grace.
Perfectionism is bondage. Jesus came to set us free.
You don’t have to be a perfect housekeeper, or employee, or wife, or mother, or anything. You don’t have to perfectly stick to your diet and never skip the gym and you don’t even have to always get dressed or comb your hair or even get out of bed.
You’re allowed to fail and to do it wrong sometimes and to sometimes not even do it at all.
Faithfulness only requires holding it–whatever your “it” is–out to God with open hands and a surrendered heart and saying, “This is the best I can do today, Lord, and I offer it up to you.”
And that’s enough.
You’re enough.
Love,
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
I already talked about my own struggles with faithfulness, especially in the mundane, day-to-day tasks involved with good stewardship. The big area where this has been particularly challenging for me is housekeeping, and I feel like this is an area where the Lord’s been nudging me to improve. So before I close out this topic, I thought I’d share what that looks like in my own life.
Basically, it comes down to two things: rhythms and habits.
I’ve talked before about establishing rhythms, so I won’t get detailed about that here. But establishing rhythms for my days and weeks is essential to my ability to get anything done, and figuring out how to fit cleaning and house work into those rhythms has gone a long way toward making me feel like an actual grownup person. And the way I’ve done that is to focus on building habits, one new habit at a time.
The key to this is to connect the new habit you want to build to an existing habit. I kind of figured this out on my own after a lot of trial and error, but apparently, it’s actual science. The old habit acts as a trigger to help you remember and launch into the new habit. For me, this looks like wiping down the bathroom sink and mirror every time I brush my teeth. I don’t have to think about brushing my teeth. I just do it. Okay, truth time–sometimes my husband has to remind me to do it. But still, I do it, and when I do, I remember (helped largely by seeing the toothpaste splatters on the mirror) that when I’m done I need to go ahead and wipe the mirror and sink.
The other key to successful habit-building is to set yourself up for success–i.e., make it as easy to do for yourself and eliminate as many barriers to actually doing the new thing as possible. In my sink/mirror cleaning example, this means I keep a spray bottle of cleaner under the sink and a roll of paper towels beside it. So once I’m done brushing, I don’t have to go hunt up the necessary cleaning supplies and risk that I’ll get distracted and forget all about it. I just put my toothbrush up, grab the bottle and a wad of paper towels and get to wipin’. The whole thing takes about two minutes.
This was my starting point, and the thing I always make a point to remain consistent in no matter how hectic my life gets and no matter what other habits fall by the wayside. Since we moved, I’m having to re-build some additional cleaning habits that I had developed in our former residence. These include things like doing the dishes once I’m finished eating and remembering to grab a baby wipe and spend five minutes dusting surfaces each day after my lunch. I’m also working on establishing a morning each week to run the vacuum and swiffer the hardwood floors–a task that takes about 20 minutes, which is a fraction of the time it took just to vacuum our old house.
Have I mentioned that I’m kind of loving living in a small apartment?
And here’s the other thing: my biggest hang up BY FAR when it came to this sort of thing was that I always built it up in my head to be a major chore that would consume so much of my time and energy that there was no way I could fit it in. This is because I would put it off for so long that once I finally got around to cleaning it WAS a major chore that ate up all my time and energy. I would go weeks without cleaning more than absolutely necessary, not really noticing that things were getting bad until they were too awful to ignore (side note: I should mention here that my husband does what he can to clean. Because of his physical limitations there are tasks that he can’t do, or that are a lot more difficult for him than they are for me, so that’s pretty much how we divide the household labor–he does what he can and I do the rest. But God bless him, he doesn’t complain when I don’t step up and do my part on a consistent basis. This man, y’all. I am richly blessed). So then I’d have to devote an entire weekend to cleaning, and be so wiped out by the experience that I wouldn’t want to even look at a cleaning product again for weeks, if not months.
If this sounds a little too familiar, I recommend checking out A Slob Comes Clean, where Dana has all kinds of things to say about Cleaning Brain and how some people (like me) just aren’t wired that way (I still really need to check out her book).
But the thing is, you guys, that when I do these things habitually? They usually take a couple of minutes. Two minutes here, five there for the daily chores, and 20 minutes once a week or so for the bigger chores. Cleaning is not actually a big deal. I just blew it up into one in my mind, and I had to break myself of the habit of seeing it as this impossible chore and retrain my mind to see the reality. And the reality is that it just isn’t that hard.
I’ve been talking specifically about cleaning, but I think these principles have broader application to a lot of different areas of our lives. If there’s an area where you’re struggling to be a good steward, I hope this helps.
Another thing that helps is figuring out why you want to be faithful in this area. Of course, as Christians, the big one is obvious–we want to be obedient stewards of the things we’re blessed with and honor God by taking good care of them. Also, we’re promised that if we’re faithful in the little things, we’ll be entrusted with bigger things. That’s pretty motivating all by itself. But it helps to identify more personal motivating factors. For me, I want my home to be a place where my husband feels loved and cared for and anyone who comes to visit can feel welcome and relaxed. Since my home is also my workplace, I also want it to be a place where I can feel relaxed and inspired instead of distracted by messes and guilt.
Do you have anything to add? I’d love to hear from you. Tell us about how you cultivate faithfulness in your own life, or share your own tips on building good habits and staying motivated!
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
Trust in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. — Ps. 37:3 NASB
Psalm 37 is one of my favorite passages of scripture. To loosely paraphrase and summarize, it basically says that the world is a seemingly unfair and unjust place where bad people seem to prosper at the expense of good people, but it’s not our job to worry about that. God is fully aware, and He’s in control. Nobody’s going to get away with anything, and those who are dealt with unjustly will be vindicated in due time. That’s His job.
Our job is outlined in the verse above: Trust the Lord. Do good within our own communities and spheres of influence. Dwell patiently where we’re planted and…?
The third verse of this psalm is an interesting one. Not just because of its instructiveness but because that last instruction appears to vary depending on which translation you’re reading. Take a minute and just look at all the different ways this last clause is translated. Apparently, the original Hebrew verb literally means either “feed on truth” or “be fed in truth,” and Bible translators aren’t sure exactly what that means. So we get translations like the one at the top of this post that tell us to “cultivate faithfulness,” and others, like the International Standard Version, that say to “feed on faithfulness.” Still others, like the NIV, say to “enjoy safe pasture” or something along those lines.
So which is it?
I’m no Bible scholar, but I think that they’re each right in a way. I think it’s a cycle. God is faithful. We trust in this aspect of His character and this builds our faith and enables us to be faithful and obedient. And when we’re faithful to meet the conditions of His promises, He’s faithful to keep His promises, which further builds our faith and helps us to grow in faithfulness, and so on. And throughout this cyclical process, as our faith is strengthened so is our sense of security and our belief that God is fully in control and we don’t need to worry. We can relax. And the more we’re focused on faithfully serving God and His agenda, the less worried we’ll be about what people in the world are doing or what they’re thinking or saying about us.
It’s like a never-ending loop of faithfulness. God’s faithfulness builds my faith and confidence in Him, which increases my faithfulness, which in turn increases my trust and obedience, which increases God’s faithfulness in my life, and so on. And knowing that faithfulness is part of God’s character, if the loop breaks down I know it’s because of some failure on my part–I’ve failed to be faithful in some area–and not on His. I can pray and ask Him to show me which areas of my life are lacking in faithfulness and focus on improving in those areas.
Next week I’ll share some specific examples of how I’m working to cultivate faithfulness in my own life, but in general, how can I be sure I’m being faithful?
I can do my best to be obedient to His word. To keep His commandments and live an overall life of faith, trust and obedience, staying surrendered to His will for my life. I can keep showing up to carry out the assignments He’s given me, even when I don’t feel like it, even when they seem pointless, trusting Him not only to give me the ability and strength but also entrusting Him with the outcomes.
And if I’m doing all of that, I can rest in the knowledge that He’ll take care of me, and everything will work out according to His plan.
God is faithful. Just this morning my husband and I received some good news that was an answer to a lot of prayer, reminding me yet again that He’s got this, and He’s got us, and we don’t need to worry or fret.
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
Back when I was choosing my One Word for 2017, I felt certain that faithfulness was going to be a big theme this year. Just as I was about to commit to it, I thought I felt a nudge to change my word to Abandon, but even so, it’s themes of God’s faithfulness and faithful obedience that keep cropping up in my devotions and Bible studies, and in my life in general. Clearly, faithfulness is something I’m supposed to pay attention to and work on this year.
But what, exactly, is faithfulness, and what does it mean to be faithful? The dictionary defines faithfulness as “the quality of being faithful; fidelity.” Okay, but then what does that mean, exactly? There are actually several dictionary definitions of the word “faithful”:
1. obsolete : full of faith
2. steadfast in affection or allegiance : loyal – a faithful friend
3. firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty : conscientious – a faithfulemployee
4. given with strong assurance : binding – a faithful promise
5. true to the facts, to a standard, or to an original – a faithful copy
Synonyms include the words loyal, true, dependable, trustworthy, steadfast, staunch, constant and resolute.
It says that the first definition is obsolete, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing obsolete about being full of faith when it comes to the kind of faithfulness God desires from us.
Apart from the dictionary definitions, here is what I know and understand about faithfulness:
It’s an attribute of God’s character. He is faithful, reliable, dependable, steadfast, unchanging, an unfailing keeper of His covenants and promises.
It’s a fruit of the Spirit. If the Holy Spirit dwells in me, then I am capable of exercising faithfulness and being faithful. Not just in my relationship with God and in my marriage and other earthly relationships, but in all areas of my life, every day, in every task I’m given.
Faithfulness is a quality that God desires from us. Biblical faithfulness means being obedient, following through and finishing what we start. It means faithfully and obediently carrying out our assignments, both the big, scary exciting ones and the mundane, boring, day-to-day ones.
Faithfulness is an act of faith. Our faithfulness requires believing and trusting in a faithful God.
I don’t know about you, sister friend, but I’m not always so good at exhibiting this particular spiritual fruit in my life. It seems to me that it’s easier to be faithful in the big things than in the little things. Things like being a faithful steward of my home or my money or my health. Faithful obedience tends to fly out the window when I’m too tired to clean or exercise or I’d rather splurge on some shiny thing I don’t need than save responsibly or I just really want that third (…or fourth or maybe even fifth) slice of pizza.
Thankfully, just like any fruit, this one can be cultivated, and how to do that is what I’m going to be looking at here in the coming weeks, with a more in-depth look at what the Bible says about faithfulness and some practical steps we can all take to grow this fruit.
What about you? Is this an area you need to work on, or have you got this whole faithfulness thing down (and if you do can you share some tips with the rest of us)? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Love,
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PS: Find more encouragement for your soul at these linkups:
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
PPS: Looking for some a-MAZ-ing tools and resources to help you be more productive, write better and/or generally do life while keeping your sanity? I’ve got the goods — sign up to receive Daydreamer Dispatches, a once- or twice-a-month newsletter from yours truly, and you’ll automatically receive a super-sekrit link to My Absolute Must-Have, Can’t Live Without Tools and Resources list! Click here to get your link!
A Jesus girl through and through, Jean Marie Bauhaus is on a journey of healing and rediscovering who God purposefully created her to be and figuring out how to do life within that context. She’s the wife of Matt and mom to a crew of four-legged dependents, all of whom make their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Jean counts coffee, dark chocolate and a yarn addiction among her vices. She’s the author of Restless Spirits, a family-friendly paranormal romance/mystery now available from Vinspire Publishing. You can learn more about her novels and short fiction at jeanmariebauhaus.com.
