Cultivating Faithfulness

Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He will do it. (Ps 37:3-5 NAS)

How do I reach my future dreams? How do I bring them to pass? How will I see the great desires of my heart fulfilled? When pondering the desires of our heart, the psalmist doesn’t instruct us to achieve our dreams or to fulfill the desires of our heart. He says God will give us the desires of our heart. He says to commit our way to the Lord, trust him and “God will do it.” What the psalmist urges us to do is “cultivate faithfulness”.

I believe one of the greatest tools in achieving our dreams is the practice of cultivating faithfulness. But why?

First of all, faithfulness is rooted in trusting the Lord. The concept of cultivating, in itself, embodies the virtue of faithfulness. Faithfulness takes practice, it takes great care, and it takes focus and determination. Faithfulness requires cultivation.  I can only be faithful right now, today. I cannot be faithful with what I do not have or that which I cannot control. If I focus too much on achieving my dreams, I live in the future, trying to obtain what is yet out of reach. I waste precious time worrying, wondering, grasping and despairing about a future that is out of my control. So the Lord says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6:34 NIV). It takes trust and faith in God to focus on the “trouble” of today and trust that God is working through each day of my trusting faithfulness to bring my dreams to pass in the future. God works through my faithfulness. Each day I am faithful brings me that much closer to Him bringing my dreams to fulfillment and giving me the desires of my heart. Faithfulness is my part. The result of my faithfulness is God’s part. 

Part of trusting the Lord is the practice of delighting in Him. The psalmist knows there are countless times in our journey where there may be little to be delighted about; the times when we see little fruitfulness and little progress toward experiencing the delight of our dreams. Delighting ourselves in the Lord allows us to forget about what we don’t yet have and focus on the fact that God is a faithful and loving Father who will give us the desires of our heart. Delighting in Him gives us the strength and hope to continue being faithful in spite of adversity.  And above all, He is the deepest desire of our heart and therefore, He, Himself is the delight of our soul and the fulfillment of our desires.

Like a gardener nurturing a tender sapling, cultivate faithfulness in everything you do, and you will find that your little sapling will grow into a fruitful tree, that brings blessing and shelter to more and more people each passing day.

Focusing on faithfulness will inevitably yield a life of fruitfulness.