We--and I definitely include myself in this category--love to think of ourselves as revolutionary firebrands, as if our generation is the cumulative second-coming of a technologically equipped Martin Luther.
We love to glorify the cowboy, the lone ranger, the wild men who break free from the prison bars of a 9 to 5 and a lawn to mow.
While much of this is attitude can be good and necessary, I think that we as Christians are especially prone to exalt a radical out-of-the-box attitude as the newly discovered chief end of man.
It strikes me as odd--and most of all, humbling--then, that the concept of "radical living" in and of itself is nowhere to be found in the Scriptures. Of course, as Jesus steps onto the stage of human history, He delivers one challenge after another that require a radical change at the heart level--akin to being born again--but you won't find Him calling His disciples to become a group of mavericks who renounce convention as a spiritual act in and of itself.
In fact, what the Scriptures hold up as the the normal and practical context of a Christian living out his or her faith is just that: normal and practical.
Maybe, instead of Christ calling His disciples to merely flaunt convention, He's calling us to a change that is deeper than simply quitting a job or selling a house. You don't need to be given a new heart to figure out that the American Dream isn't all it's cracked up to be, but you do need to be given a new heart if you're going to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
This is the kind of change that will result in that increasingly forgotten virtue known as faithfulness.
The forgotten fruit of faithfulness is what my friend and former boss, Tim, reminded me of this past year. Tim had originally hired me at Concordia, and I worked under him for a year before he moved onto a different position at the school.
I have all the respect in the world for Tim as a godly man and a leader, and so when I came upon hard times in the past year, I went to him for advice.
After listening to my situation and helping me to think through a couple of different issues, he said something so simple that I was almost tempted to pass it by.
He said, "Jay, God is not calling us to do anything heroic or to be liked by everybody, but He is calling us to be faithful. With His help, I think it's a pretty achievable goal."
A few months removed from that conversation, I'm still getting a bit choked up just remembering those words and the deep, lasting consolation the Lord delivered to my soul that afternoon.
Far from boring and mundane, faithfulness is a miraculous fruit that is produced by God's Spirit in the hearts and lives of believers.
Faithfulness means answering the bell morning after morning, working hard, paying attention to detail at our jobs, refusing to be distracted and waste our company's time. It means that we are consistent in the time we spend with our families, making that time count by pouring into them and showing them how to walk with the Lord.
Faithfulness also means pursuing relationships that God is putting naturally in our lives; relentlessly loving, knowing and caring for our friends, co-workers and neighbors and ceaselessly praying that God would open a door for His gospel there.
Faithfulness means that we make the most of our time, realizing that time is short and we are on a mission to reach a dying world with the good news of God who has loved us and pursued us even to the point of death so that we might live in Him.
I pray that God would produce this forgotten fruit of faithfulness in me more and more.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." -Galatians5:22-24
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