After hearing a powerful message from my church in Salem, MA, this morning, this song came onto my Spotify playlist:

 

Loyalty, faithfulness, and honesty tend to be pitied more than valued in our fast-paced, take-care-of-number-one hearts.

 

Not society. Hearts.

 

I find myself coming up with reasons I don’t have to be faithful, that being loyal to God and his good causes of justice and mercy in this world… isn’t something I need to necessarily make my priority.

David, my favorite ancient poet, was a man who lacked in himself these “staying” qualities. David was a murderer and a cheat — though he once spared the life of his greatest enemy. David’s first son died, and the first thing he did was worship God despite his pain; yet he was a horrible father to the sons who followed.

Yet, because God was a person who stayed in David’s life, David still became known in history as one who stayed after God’s heart. Could that be me, too?

Ashamedly, I’m a mixed bag. Yet because of God’s faithfulness, perhaps my own faithfulness could be what is thrown into the air and the oceans of my world because I breathed and planted.

Because God stays, maybe I can stay with this world, and encourage it to stay with me, too.

I can never become righteous by what I do. There is no light within me to generate. But when I look to the radiant one, my face also shines. Only then can I be filled with light to give to my world. Otherwise, I give of emptiness; I try to love without knowing what pure love even is. My love is hopelessly tainted… unless I let Him love me fully and completely as I am.

We criticize and agonize and lament over ways the world is ill, the ways it lacks staying power — and rightly so. Yet as we look at the statistics and the hateful pickets and the ways we have been treated, we forget something:

Things can, and do, and WILL, actually get better.

 

And the overarching narrative I see in the holy book of my own faith is that things WILL actually get better.

In “The Church” (which is really just made of lots of you’s and me’s).

In “society” (which is really just made of lots of you’s and me’s).

In my family (this is perhaps where we do the most battle).

In my heart toward God, myself, and all of the above (I take that back. This one is the first and final frontier).

 

Remember, the very same things that frustrate is in others are the very same things that you and I were – and often, still are in ways. If there’s hope for you and me, the same hope and repentance is offered to our “enemies.”

Things WILL actually get better. People WILL learn and turn from hypocrisy. You and I WILL let God’s light into this world, starting with our own hearts. Where else do you start? You can’t love unless you first experience love. And you can’t experience this love without a supremely perfect lover. Thanks be to God that one exists!

Things WILL actually get better. Not because we’re heroes, but because we have a Hero who went before us, who already changed the fate of creation, locally and globally, who won the big battle so we have hope in winning the skirmishes.

Oh Lord, make us faithful, so we do not destroy with one hand the very things we build with the other. Make us of one mind. Remove my hypocrisy, the hypocrisy of your people, starting with me, in the way only You can. Show me Your glory!

This song is on repeat tonight at my house. I won’t always stay. I don’t often want to stay. I want to want to stay. Take my eyes off myself so I can behold and reflect Your glory unhindered.

 

“Song of David” — Hunter G.K. Thompson (Lyrics)

Lord, I long that I would be found as David was
One whose life long pursuit was chasing God
With my heart seen as loyal
True through Jesus’ blood
May I be found faithful to Your love
Lord, I long that I would be found as David was
That I would know what moves the heart of God
With my praise seen as honest
Beautiful and raw
May I be found faithful to Your love

I long to be found faithful in Your eyes
Make within my heart, a pure and spotless bride

And if I, too, like David fall into the night
May Your hand come and pull me back to the light
From my deepest desire, despite the sands of time
As to be found faithful in Your eyes

I long to be found faithful in Your eyes
Make within my heart, a pure and spotless bride
I will live this life to be found loyal in Your sight
So make within my heart, Your pure and spotless bride

That my heart would be found
Faithful towards You