Jeremiah 2:19 says, “Your evil will chastise you, and your apostasy will reprove you. Know and see that it is evil and bitter for you to forsake the Lord your God; the fear of me is not in you, declares the Lord God of hosts.” While there are places where scripture tells us that God raises up enemies to chastise his people, this verse also says choices have natural outcomes that can discipline us. Hosea 14:9 agrees, “For the ways of the Lord are right, and the upright walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them.” God’s ways do not change to please us or to accommodate our desires. Reality doesn’t change based on whether or not we like it.
I find the last part of the Jeremiah passage to be particularly cautionary. I doubt the Israelites to whom this verse was addressed woke up one morning and said, “I think I’d like to be evil and apostate,” and went to work on developing those qualities in their lives. My guess is that because they lacked a fear of God, they made small compromises that led them by degrees further and further away from God’s desired path for them. This is a danger for me, too. Little choices can seem insignificant, but added together they can result in a great deviation. God calls for us to be faithful in the small things, and this may be part of the reason why.
What hinders being faithful in small things? I think one hindrance is a lack of clarity about what God has said. When the serpent was tempting Eve, he said, “Has the Lord really said…?” Both his question and Eve’s answer contained things that God had not said. (This looks intentional on the part of the serpent, who went on to tell her that God lied. We, too, can encounter people who intend to deceive.) Being familiar with Scripture, and believing its truth, can help us recognize God’s voice better and be less susceptible to the deception of others. Writing down what we think God is asking us to do is probably wise if it’s a long-term project.
Prompt obedience to God can also help us to be faithful. I remember one time when the idea popped into my mind that I should say something to someone who was beside me. So I did—and immediately felt like an idiot. Why did I say that? And then later the person told me she really needed to hear what I had said. If I had delayed obedience, I would likely have convinced myself that it was an idiotic thing to say and never have said it at all. Abraham acted promptly when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. I think if he had delayed it would have gotten harder and harder to obey.
Another hindrance to faithfulness is trying to do the tasks in my own strength. God asks us to do things that are beyond what we can do on our own. In 2 Corinthians 9:8 we are told that God gives an an abundance of grace so we can abound in good works. If we are not relying on that grace, we may decide a task is too hard, which could easily lead to questioning the task or being satisfied with doing less than God really desired us to do.
I think an aid to faithfulness is to spend time focused on God’s glory, majesty, and power. This helps me remember who he is—and who I am not. It leads to the kind of fear of God that Proverbs 14:27 talks about: a life-giving fountain that turns us from the snares of death.