By Charles Barnard
Faithfulness is the other pier that is set on our foundation of love and holds up the voussoirs that make up the arch which represents the mindset of a champion. Faithfulness is circular. The faithfulness we project is built from the faithfulness we have internally. Ultimately, faithfulness is connected to our trustworthiness. Our trustworthiness is a function of our integrity. Our integrity is built upon our congruency. Our congruency comes from our faithfulness to our moral code – our personal ethos and stand. Faithfulness also exhibits eight specific characteristics or virtues: being both a follower and a leader, humility, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing, stewardship, foresight, and selflessness.
In our growth mindset training curriculum, we actually deal with the moral code in our spiritual lesson because of its implication throughout the entire arch. The moral code we operate under is in large part what makes the spirit of a champion the keystone to the entire mindset of a champion arch. In our training on faithfulness we focus on those eight virtues or those eight characteristics of faithfulness.
As mentioned in previous articles and posts, our beliefs are fundamental in shaping our virtues or those character traits we exhibit through our actions. In our modern world, beliefs and virtues are too often given over to popular culture and the shapers of popular culture with two of the most powerful forces of that being the entertainment industry and education. In fact, I would submit for careful consideration the notion that those two forces have long since supplanted families and the church as the primary shapers of the virtues and beliefs people adopt in their lives.
If my premise is accurate, it becomes that much more important that families begin to be very deliberate in thinking about the virtues they want their children to adopt and be proactive in making sure those virtues are indeed trained or developed. I have written previously about those virtues that constitute what we think of as agape and the importance of consciously looking at your worldview – your faith – to be sure you are congruent in your core beliefs. Now, we are looking at the virtues that make up your faithfulness. To repeat, for this article I am going to focus on the idea of developing those eight virtues that are consistent with the idea of faithfulness.
Being a follower and a leader encompasses a couple of different ideas. First, it is the idea of following and being true to your worldview. It also encompasses the idea of being true to your ethos – that moral code that you will live by. Your ethos will guide all your actions. Secondly, the idea of being a follower and a leader is encompassed in part in the idea of being a servant leader. Truthfully, we are always serving someone and when we recognize that we are willing to follow the dictates of those we serve provided in doing so we are also living out our personal ethos. A great leader will also know when to hand over leadership to those with specific and needed skill sets to solve particular problems. They will trust or have faith in those people and be faithful by leading by demonstrating the need to sometimes follow.
Humility is the next character trait of faithfulness. In our training curriculum, humility is first addressed in the mindset of love training. When training faithfulness some of the characteristics get first trained in that training but will continue to be trained in subsequent trainings. As I have said, mindset training is a life-long process. Working on being humble and genuinely willing to give praise when it is called for and spread the credit to those who help along the way will go a long way toward ensuring you will be thought of as a humble individual. The key is to be genuine and the easiest way to be genuine in this category is to shape your beliefs so you know that you really aren’t anything without the people you have in your life. Your beliefs will guide humility as they guide all your virtues.
Meekness is a very misunderstood term. It was by me for a long time. For many people meekness means weakness and timidity. That is not what it means. In one of his lectures, Jordan Peterson explains what meekness means. Meekness is when you have the power and skill to use the sword, but you choose to keep it sheathed. That is definitely not weakness and timidity. If anything it is some combination of wisdom, courage, patience, mercy, and justice.
Once again, we see the emergence of a love characteristic in one of our piers. Longsuffering and slow to anger are virtually the same. Long suffering is made up of two Greek words meaning “long” and “temper”; literally, “long-tempered.” If you are longsuffering, then you will have self-restraint when becoming angry. The difference then between becoming slow to anger and longsuffering is that idea of being in control of the anger so your actions are faithful to the moral code that defines you. Anger has the ability for us to react to a violation of some code we operate under and in so doing we ourselves end up violating that very code. Anger without proper restraint can often lead to unfaithfulness. Training the virtue of long suffering is really about mastering your emotions and your anger strategy. It takes being taught the right tools and then developing the habits that will train your ability to become long suffering.
The next characteristic of faithfulness is forbearance. Forbearance came from “Old English forberan, ‘bear up against, control one’s feelings, abstain from, refrain; tolerate. If we are faithful, we will “forbear threatening.” The Christian context this comes from should help understand the word. Forbearing threating appears on the bible in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 9. Paul is laying out the responsibilities faithful servants of Christ have. In verse 9, he is talking to those who have authority over others – the masters of servants. In this context, forbearing threatening means you control your feelings and abstain from threatening because you have a master in heaven who doesn’t think you are any better than your servant. The lesson then is a faithful person will be a great leader because they will understand that honey is sweeter than vinegar. They will understand that you will be far more likely to build faithfulness in those under you or are serving your needs by restraining yourself from trying to motivate with threats. Threats and natural, negative consequences for improper behavior are not the same thing. Notice the connections and subtle differences between meekness, longsuffering, and forbearance.
Stewardship is the next aspect of faithfulness. Again, let’s begin by defining our term. The definition we are interested in is this, “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.” It is this idea of stewardship that is part of faithfulness. Think about what this really means. Think about all the things entrusted to your care. As you think about those things, you will want to consider if all four areas of your life are represented. What are the things that have been entrusted to you in your personal life, professional life, civic life, and spiritual life. How much have you thought about being a good steward in those areas and what would that look like for you? Again, awareness is the first step in being able to train your mindset.
Foresight is the next virtue that makes up faithfulness. According to Wordnik.com, foresight is the “ability or action of imagining [emphasis added] or anticipating what might happen in the future.” Think about that for a moment. Foresight is the ability to imagine what might happen in the future. Now, how do you think that is connected to faithfulness? Realistically, when you train foresight you are training the ability to imagine what will happen in the future. In doing that, you can prepare various plans of actions for what might happen. There are also steps that we train in our spirit course that help you adapt on the fly which is a slightly different but yet necessary skill than just being able to plan ahead.
Once again, we have a characteristic that we have addressed to some extent – selflessness. Remember that to be faithful you are trustworthy and loyal. To truly be faithful then you must be thinking of others and not yourself. There is no faking this. People can spot false selflessness possibly easier than any other personality flaw. It must be genuine. You can never train these traits too often if it is going to be ingrained in who we are.
The first step in the training process is awareness, but ultimately you need a structured program and a way to be held accountable so you actually participate in the training. Most books and workshops are knowledge based and like this article don’t provide step by step actions to take and don’t provide any mechanism to hold you accountable. When training programs don’t work for people ultimately it is their own inability to follow through. A good training program will not only lead you to water but will do what it can to make you thirsty so you will want to drink the water when they bring you to it. You still must decide to drink.
https://growthmimindsettrainingacademy.com/Success-Institutes-faithfulness