The Pound For Pound PrincipleSample

Moving Up in Weight Class  

What does faithfulness mean to you?

When I hear the word faithful, I imagine a salesman who has worked for over forty years at the same company. He has pounded the pavement and done his best to remain one of the top producers in his sales force, with an internal engine that keeps him going despite losing a sale or contract. He changes with the company, from using the typewriter to the floppy disks, to Palm Pilots then to iPhones. At the end of his career, he has passed on trade secrets and wisdom to the up-and-coming young guns. At his retirement party, all the employees chip in to buy him an expensive gold watch with an inscription on the back simply stating, “You Were Faithful.”

Often, faithfulness is found in places you’d never even bother to look. We see the championship game but not the hours of blood, sweat, and tears of the one practicing on his own, long after everyone has gone home. We see the A+ student giving the Valedictorian speech on graduation day, but not the tutoring she received in the tenth grade. 

Faithfulness is always followed, eventually, by fruitfulness. As in life and ministry, we can become discouraged when we fail to see fruit in the early stages. But if you look closely, you’ll be able to identify the blossoms of the beginning stages of fruitfulness.  When you see the blossoms then you can expect fruit to follow. Some seasons bring a higher yield of fruit than others. Sometimes seasons require more pruning. We can control our faithfulness, but we have no control over the amount of fruit we yield. Keep being faithful to what God has called you to do, and He will help you bear fruit.