Writings of a Beholder 🌿 7.21.23
Curiosity & cultivating a practice of faithfulness
Curiosity & Cultivating a Practice of Faithfulness
The word “faithfulness” has been jumping out at me in this season of my life, beckoning me to pay attention to it. This all started when my momma gifted me a journal with beautiful butterscotch-colored calligraphy etched across it that reads:
“Stay faithful in the process. God is doing a beautiful work in you and it will bear much fruit.” (Jenessa Wait)
If you recall a few weeks ago, I wrote about the current liturgical season that we find ourselves in — the season of Ordinary Time — and how its invitation is to a slower pace of living and communing with God as we walk out our faith with Christ in the days leading up to Advent.
Ordinary Time is the season when we are called to focus on living and walking daily with God and with people, paying attention to our own spiritual formation.
It’s the season when we are invited to dig our roots and our fingernails and toes down deep into the soil of our very lives and cultivate a practice of faithfulness, and I’ve been pondering lately what this practically looks like.
There are many instances in the Bible when God is referred to as being faithful or being praised for His faithfulness. Here are just a few of those passages if you’d like to read and meditate on them:
“Because of the Lord’s faithful love
we do not perish,
for his mercies never end.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness!” (Lamentations 3:22-23, CSB)“Lord, your faithful love reaches to heaven,
your faithfulness to the clouds.” (Psalm 36:5, CSB)“ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9, CSB)
If we want to look deeper at the actual meaning of the word ‘faithful’, it means to remain loyal, steadfast, reliable, dependable, trustworthy, constant, and true. God embodies faithfulness, staying true to His Word and keeping every promise He makes. Because faithful is Who He is, not just something He does, He’s incapable of ever dropping the ball. He follows through, and because of this, we know He can be trusted.
We also know from Galatians 5:22-23 that not only is faithfulness a characteristic of God but something we are invited to cultivate and live into ourselves.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things.” (CSB)
Faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit, meaning that it’s something watered and grown over a lifetime walking in step with the Spirit of God as we rely on Him to cultivate and produce this fruit within us. It’s not something that can be grown or produced in our own strength or by our own volition but constantly has to be subjected to a moment-by-moment relationship with God. In fact, in John 15:4, we see Jesus’ invitation to remain, or abide, in Him and that through abiding, good fruit grows.
“Remain in me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me.” (CSB)
So, when considering what it means to practice faithfulness, we must first acknowledge that we can’t do it without remaining in relationship and union with God. It’s only through His Love and leading that we are able to transform further into His image and cultivate the fruit of faithfulness.
Once we understand that, then we can freely step into the different areas of our lives and begin practicing being faithful. I think the greatest practical example in the Bible of what it looks like for humans to practice faithfulness can be found in Hebrews 11. The entire chapter, known as ‘The Hall of Faith’, highlights and honors people in the Bible such as Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Enoch, Rahab, and Moses who all lived by faith and cultivated faithfulness to God.
By no means were these people perfect, and that’s never the goal when it comes to living as human people loved by God and living in a fallen world. But I think what sets all of these faith heroes apart, and the one commonality that they share, is their willingness to surrender to God’s plan, trust in His Love, and follow His lead. They were very human, beautifully flawed and all, who let themselves become totally reliant on their God.
I’m not going to dissect all of the lives of the people that I named earlier, but what I want to do today is choose one person and observe how they began to cultivate a practice of faithfulness. Because every hero of the faith started somewhere and because we all need a place to begin — a launch pad, a starting point — so that we can begin cultivating faithfulness right where we are without drowning in overwhelm. So that we can gain a better understanding of what practicing faithfulness in our own lives may actually look like. I think some of our findings just might surprise you and possibly relieve you today.
Today, we’re going to take a look at Exodus 3:1-6, when God first calls Moses to set His people free from the Egyptians. Let’s read the passage first.
“Meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a bush. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?”
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
“Here I am,” he answered.
“Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
(Exodus 3:1-6, CSB)
There are three things that stood out to me from this passage that I believe show us where Moses’ faithfulness began. And I think that paying attention to these things can help us practically begin cultivating faithfulness in our right now lives. Let’s take a look.
Curiosity — that is what led Moses to that burning bush: So Moses thought, “I must go over and look at this remarkable sight. Why isn’t the bush burning up?” (v. 3) Moses allowed himself to be open and to be curious, and he listened to that curiosity. He asked himself a question and then began to move toward what had prompted that question. It makes me think that maybe faithfulness starts with being honest about the questions we have and allowing ourselves the space to wrestle with our doubts and our fears as we move toward God with all that we’re carrying within us.
Hebrews 11:1 tells us that faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. Mystery. Faith is living into the mystery and uncertainty of God’s ways and plans while trusting Who He is. And as we lean into our curiosity and pay attention to the questions we carry, we, too, can move toward the Spirit of God just as Moses did.
Moses responds to God when He calls him: When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!”
“Here I am,” he answered.” (v.4) Moses’ curiosity and questioning led to God, Who called Moses to Him by name. And we read that Moses immediately responds and moves even closer to the burning bush, which is the very presence of the Lord. He comes so close that God has to warn Moses not to come any closer, but instead, to remove his sandals for the ground he walked across was holy and sacred.
In order to respond to God, Moses had to be listening for His voice. In listening for His voice, he was able to respond and follow where God was calling him. Moses didn’t hesitate when he heard his name, but instead responded and went where God was, and we are invited to do the same.
Moses hid but in doing so, revealed his humanity: “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. (v. 5-6) He was scared (I mean, who wouldn’t be?), and by hiding his face from God he did not hide his fear. Sometimes, walking in faith can be a scary, uncertain thing. Actually, most of the time it’s scary and uncertain! And just like Moses, we are invited to be honest about our fears and doubts. God beckons all of who we are into His presence, even the parts of us that struggle to believe in His goodness and follow His leading. He welcomes our humanity because the Son of God bore it Himself and because of that, He knows what it’s like to feel afraid and step out in faith.
Cultivating a practice of faithfulness doesn’t require an absence of fear, it requires honesty and vulnerability and there is greater courage found in both of those than there ever will be in trying to put on a brave face while attempting to mask our humanity. We are allowed to fall apart in the presence of God because He holds and loves all the pieces of who we are. We are allowed to let our humanity show, every beautiful and broken part of it, and in doing so we begin to move toward a true, honest, and down-to-earth kind of faithfulness.
Curiosity, listening and responding, and letting our humanity show are three (ok, that’s technically 4, but who’s counting?), ways to begin cultivating a practice of faithfulness right where you are. What I find interesting about these three things that we’ve observed from Moses’ story of faithfulness is that all of them are sort of internal. There is action required in all of them, yes, but do you notice how Moses didn’t start out with some big, grand gesture of declaring his allegiance to God through some radical act of strength and power?
Do you notice how he didn’t start out parting the red sea?
He started by turning inward and paying attention to what was happening beneath the surface of his soul and from there, God was able to grow him into a man of faithfulness who would go on to free thousands of Israelites from generations of enslavement.
Cultivating faithfulness for you and me begins right here, right in the fabric of our very human, very mundane, and sometimes crazy, lives. It starts with what is simmering beneath the surface of our own souls, in the soil of what God is calling us to be faithful to today.
Maybe for you, it’s a season of mothering young children, growing a business, trying to keep up with the dirty dishes, or all of it and everything else in between. Maybe it looks like tending to an ill loved one or grieving the loss of someone dear to you or even the death of a dream. Perhaps it’s going back to school, letting yourself cry, or sitting in front of a counselor and letting their words bring healing and belonging.
Faithfulness doesn’t just look like parting the red sea, friend. Faithfulness can be a small prayer of whispered thanks toward heaven in the midst of a season that feels like it’s breaking you in two.
Be curious, ask those questions you’re carrying, and pay attention to the burning bushes you notice out of the corner of your eye. Then listen for the voice of Love in your life and respond to Him as He calls you by name and don’t be scared to tell Him how you really feel. Being emotionally honest with God is how we begin to cultivate emotionally healthy spiritual formation and we can’t do either unless we lean into our humanity.
A practice of faithfulness is best cultivated in the most human spaces of our everyday existence.
“Stay faithful in the process. God is doing a beautiful work in you and it will bear much fruit.” (Jenessa Wait)
With you on the journey,
Celia
Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
breathe in:
Your faithful Love, Lord.
breathe out:
Reaches to the heavens. (adapted from Psalm 36:5)
*if you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
Grab some breath prayer cards, a journal, a candle, and other contemplative resources from my Etsy shop: The Beholding Co.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. And if you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
What questions are you carrying that you need to ask yourself and the Lord?
How do you hear the voice of Love calling to you in your life right now?
How might you lean into your humanity with God today?
