Day 136 - Loyalty Light
Scripture focus: How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? Psalm 13:2 NIV
I appreciate loyalty. When my children are hurt because someone has said something extremely unkind about me - I love it that my kids care. Loyalty has its limits - and it should! Inappropriate expressions of loyalty are potential pitfalls - if we misuse its true meaning. Unhealthy families pair the value of "loyalty" with a host of behaviors that are really intended to maintain the appearance of normalcy - to the detriment of all. Below are three examples of faux loyalty - a kind of loyalty that is too "light" in substance to bear the load of loving like God.
"Don't tell the family business" is paired with family loyalty, when it truly is more about keeping secrets.
"We can solve our problems" is a way to teach others how NOT to ask for help.
"All we need is family" means that isolation takes place, cutting down the opportunity to study new, and perhaps more effective ways to deal with problems.
Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:7 Contemporary English Version
I have found that it is possible to be loyal to one's family without having to keep secrets, deny the existence of problems, withdraw from community or limit one's options. True loyalty is a beautiful thing - it is an expression of love. This isn't the kind of loyalty that protects an individual at the expense of the wellness of the family. In fact, the Greek work for loyal - "pisteuo" - captures the meaning of this kind of loyalty. "Pisteuo" means to think to be true, to be persuaded of, credit, place confidence in the thing believed. In the New Testament, this word is used to communicate the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of the soul. It's used to speak of a trust in Jesus and God as able to aid either in obtaining or in doing something - saving faith. Based on this big believing, this kind of loyalty makes us willing to entrust something into the hands of the one we trust.
I don't need my kids sitting around making up catchy comebacks to the intrepid critic on "You Tube." I want my kids to trust in the Lord - the one who is able to aid. I want their faith to be firmly planted in God's prevailing purposes, not in people being nice to their mom.
I want my children to be sturdy, and not blown about by a little wind of criticism. I want them to understand that we don't explore the limits of our own abilities, trusting God to do in and through and with us, what we never could accomplish on our own without suffering failure, fatigue and criticism. In order to develop this kind of inner strength, we've got to become more concerned about what God believes about us than we believe about ourselves - or others assume is true.
I suppose the thing I want for all of us is a firmly grounded loyalty and trust in God. This dynamic duo will allow us gentleness and compassion of spirit for our own messiness, and the messiness of others. Make no mistake, those guys shouldn't be talking trash like that - it's rude. But that doesn't give me the liberty to be trashy in return.
Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 15 and 16 in the morning; Psalm 109 and 110 in the evening
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