Freedom delivers the soul from pain which can be caused by a broken heart. A heart breaks when it is betrayed. Betrayal can come in many forms: disappointment in someone you trusted to fulfill his or her promise(s) to you; or an uncovered lie which you thought was absolute truth; or abandonment of someone you believed to love you for who you are. An idea of goodness shattered by wickedness, a dream deferred or dead, a smile smeared by physical, psychological, emotional acts of violence break a once positive-thinking, optimistic-beating heart.
How do you pick up the pieces of a broken heart and restore it back to wholeness? (Psalm 34:18).
The opposite of betrayal is faithfulness. Pain comes from putting your trust in other people or circumstances outside of yourself to make you feel whole, or complete, or loved; and, due to human weakness, we break each other: hurting people hurt people.
Are you ready to stop hurting?
Faithfulness is the healing balm which, when applied, soothes the heart and restores the soul to its original design and function which is to believe in and to live by whatever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8).
Stop looking on the outside for faithfulness because faithfulness must start from within you.
Faithfulness has various interpretations, or meanings. For our conversation, we will identify two areas where faithfulness should become a way of life:
Faithfulness is a quality of being loyal, devoted, and committed to someone or something wherein you are dedicated in fulfilling your obligations, responsibilities or promises. When you are faithful to yourself in this way, you dedicate your time and energy to making yourself into the best person you can be. You work on your character traits identifying your strengths and changing your weaknesses into strengths. This blog is too short to go into how to identify your weaknesses, so you must be open and honest with yourself and take responsibility for every thought, word, action you make.
If you don’t what to be hurt, try at all possible not to cause others pain. Be a beacon of love: learn what love is (1 Corinthians 13) and pray for a heart that exudes that love everywhere you go. It is not easy to love difficult people or get through hard times with a spirit of love, but that’s the main lesson in life—faithfulness produces love for oneself and for others no matter the condition. It all comes up to love. Be faithful to loving yourself. When you do this, though others may try with all their might to hurt you, you will not be moved into pain. You will rise above that pain in love’s embrace.
In personal relationships (to God and to mankind), faithfulness refers to the commitment to remain a loyal, devoted, and committed Christian, spouse, parent, friend, worker/employee, student, sibling, son or daughter in fulfilling your obligations, responsibilities or promises. When you are faithful to yourself as described above, it is easy to extend this faithfulness to others without expecting anything in return from them.
This is where most of us get it wrong. We expect that if we demonstrate faithfulness, then those in our lives will also give back the same faithfulness to us. And when they don’t, our heart breaks. Faithfulness is not conditional: “I will stay committed and loyal as long as he/she ….. for me.” The qualities of faithfulness never change and remain consistent. It is we human beings who constantly want to change what faithfulness is, but it can’t be changed. That which is abstract can never be changed. Therefore, we, vessels of clay which house the image and Spirit of God, must rise up to become what faithfulness is as individuals.
A soul that is free cannot be broken as long as it feeds on faithfulness. Faithfulness is not earned like a reward for meeting a certain condition. Faithfulness is a way of life that moves the loyal, devoted, committed, promise-fulfilling soul into becoming faithful, or faith-filled. Faith is a belief in what you cannot see right now, but something you hope will materialize one day on earth. Today, you may not see the dream you have in your heart in your life right now, but if you stay faithful in pursuing that dream, one day it shall come to pass and you will be living that dream here on earth.
In much the same way, if you stay steadfast on the path to becoming all there is to be faithful to yourself, you will experience that power which keeps you “soaring high” above all obstacles and adversities. That faithfulness can only be obtained and sustained by the resurrection power of Jesus Christ in you. You must stay connected to the Source of Life in order for your soul to be restored from all brokenness (Psalm 23: 3a). You must be found faithful—to God, to yourself, to others. That is true freedom!
Trust in the Lord, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and
Feed on His faithfulness.
(Psalm 37:3)
© 2023 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All rights reserved. Published by The Light In Me Enterprise. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The artwork depicted in the blog article is carefully selected to draw out the points made for healing of the soul, and by no means promote any ideologies from the various artists unless they are found in the center of God's perfect will.
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