Faithful to the End

Times occur in the course of human life when words want to come from our hearts, and also our mouths, and get clogged on the way by the tears and the fears.  There are times when we just cannot muster words to express the depth of what is besetting us, times when what has taken our thoughts and our feelings so firmly in grip that it paralyzes our ability to put words together in the order we would like to express the terror or the impotence that dominates our consciousness.  The anguish that accompanies our fears and deep despair can reduce us to silence and disconnect these twisted thoughts from our ability to think clearly and express even to ourselves the vulnerability and helplessness that have possessed us.  In those moments Christians struggle to hang onto hope that somehow they might come back into God’s good graces.  At such a time I wonder how it could be possible that God would still be hanging out in my vicinity.  The fact of the matter is, that is just who he is.  Faithful is our Creator’s middle name.  Many adjectives describe our God.  Faithful coordinates our experience of them all.

Our sinfulness and the evils of this world can plague our perception of ourselves and our relationship with God.  This song helps us realize again, in those moments of despair and hours of discouragement, who God is and how he relates to us.  With texts from the psalmists who composed their poetic prayers and through a rich tradition of biblical and Christian poetry, prayers, and other expressions of faith by believers throughout the ages, the Holy Spirit comes to us with substitute wording of other believers for our own responses to challenges of trust in the faithfulness of the Lord.  Such a text, with accompanying melody to drill its words deeper into our consciousness, gives voice to us, for it delivers God’s call to us with an expression of his promise to be faithful in hanging onto us in the midst of every struggle, every day of turmoil and terror, that attacks and overtakes us.  

So many things can plunge us into deep despair, fostering and nursing our anguish.  Some such things fall on us from outside our own realm of responsibility.  Illnesses of various kinds; corporate decisions made thousands of miles away that affect the shape of our jobs or whether they continue to exist at all; wind, storm, flood, fire all can tear life as we have lived it loose from its moorings and set us afloat on turbulent seas.  Sometimes the jealousy of others, or their rage against anyone in sight because of their own wounds and hurts, inflict serious damage on us.  Often our own words have gushed out too quickly and broken a friendship that gave us support and security.  Often some careless defensive move has deprived us of an opportunity of one kind or another.  Sometimes we have decided that the only course of action that is possible turned out to be the breaking point that we were trying to avoid.  Sometimes we dare to defy God’s command for the pleasure of it or because that course of action seemed to offer the most advantage.

Whatever the cause, with our defiance of God’s person, or with our ignoring of his plan for human life, we disrupt our own existence.  We also experience similar disruption caused by others and even by nature.  Such disruptions tear life and fragment our peace and joy.  They may begin by chewing at life’s edges, but they soon have our life itself in their jaws.  In the midst of such hours of agony, Jesus Christ hears us and responds.  The Father is listening, and he answers.  Life seems reduced to dust and ashes, and the Holy Spirit reminds us our God is our redeemer, savior, and friend.  He is faithful as the one who delivers or redeems us from every tight corner and every bottomless pit in which we land.  He is faithful and is standing by us in the midst of every affliction and anguish.

Christ has come to us with light that turns our red sin-burn into skin as clean as newly driven snow.  He comes to raise us from ashes.  He comes to pop up in the midst of our dark and shadowed hours.  He confronts the devil’s power whether it comes in temptation or hurt and pain.

In such moments of fear and deep despair we sing out as we hang on to his cross, where our Lord has rescued us from sin and pain and every other form of evil.  When we have difficulty clinging to it, it clings to us.  For we know that his love for us never ends.  That means he will be faithful no matter what kind of bottomless pit we get ourselves into.

In 2 Timothy 2:11-13 Paul reminded Timothy that even though our logic suggests that if we disown another person, that person will disown us, our faithful God is different. Of course, God continues to be faithful to us if we trust in him.  But the apostle adds our Lord’s own special twist: if we are faithless, he remains faithful, as our deliverer, savior, and friend.  Paul explains the reason for this seemingly illogical state of affairs.  “He cannot disown himself.”  That is, our Creator’s very nature simply consists of remaining faithful.  He would deny his very nature and disown himself if he did not remain true to his being the Creator and Lord of all he made, including those broken, despairing human creatures who have been faithless toward him.  Faithfulness defines his person.