To the Faithful: Your Character is God’s Gift

As I prepare to start my final year of high school, I find myself frequently reflecting on how I spent the past few years of my life.

Applying to college means stacking up your accomplishments. For me, it means boiling my life down to a few things: the report cards and test scores, the cross-country and track PRs, the blog articles and school newspaper issues, the volunteer hours at church–

On the surface, I see a girl who did everything “right.”

Underneath the surface, I know the price at which that came. Success isn’t easy. I see the girl who pushed through many early mornings and many late nights. I see many long runs on hilly trails and many long study sessions from the doctor’s office.

And I see a girl who is disciplined.

There are days that I wonder if my discipline has kept me in a box. What would my life look like if I had chosen to do something other than wake up with the sunrise and, well, faithfully do the work set before me? Would my life feel more exciting?

But recently I’ve considered that my disciplined character is a gift from God.

These days, faithfulness is often a lost virtue. Traits like persistence, patience, loyalty, and self-control are hard to come by.

Indeed, living a life of faithfulness can seem like more of a struggle than it’s worth. To the reader who’s been trying to do everything “right,” I see that underneath your achievements and pursuits is a weary heart that just wants to live a life for Jesus.

Your faithfulness will help you live that life.

Faithfulness reflects God’s character

Over and over, the Bible calls us to embody faithfulness.

For instance, it lists faithfulness as one of the fruits of the Spirit:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”

~ Galatians 5:22-23, ESV (emphasis added)

Faithfulness and the other virtues are called fruits of the Spirit because they come from God Himself. They are what blossom from trying to represent Christ to the world. These fruits represent His own character.

My personal faithfulness is a reflection of God’s own faithfulness.

When I faithfully rise in the morning to do my work, I get to remember that it is God who first made that sun faithfully rise.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
    his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.”

~ Lamentations 3:22-23, ESv

Living a life of daily habits has given me a deeper understanding of–and a greater respect for–God’s character. Our own faithfulness will always pale in comparison to His. Even under the highest levels of discipline, habits still break–

But God’s faithfulness never breaks. He still starts each morning with a sunrise and love and mercy.

The sunrise still waits for you when you break under the pressure of trying to do everything “right.” When “we are faithless, God remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

Faithfulness sets you free

Faithfulness is a lost virtue because it involves commitment. Such commitment may seem downright imprisoning at times, I know. That’s how I found myself wondering if my discipline had kept me in a box all these years.

But then I came across this quote one day:

“Only the disciplined ones in life are free. If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and your passions.”

~ Eliud Kipchoge, Marathon World-Record holder

And I realized that my disciplined character is God’s gift to me. It’s what gave me the strength to persevere through so many setbacks. It’s what pushed me to run even on the days when I didn’t feel like running. Without it, my running journey would have ended long ago.

God used my disciplined character to free me from my setbacks. Without it, I would have been a “slave to my moods and passions” and the temptation to quit.

Because here’s the truth: You’re inevitably a slave to something, be it righteousness or sin (See Romans 6:15-23). Being a slave to righteousness means living faithfully for God.

And it also means being set free from sin.

Living faithfully for God is hard. God asks for commitment. He asks for your heart.

But in return, He gives you freedom today and a crown in eternity.

Commitment comes at a price. It often means making a daily choice to do the hard–but right–thing, despite what your feelings tell you. My experiences with cross-country and track have taught me that.

Yet those same experiences also taught me that commitment has a beautiful reward, and a lack of commitment comes at its own price.

Indeed, running provides the perfect analogy for the value of discipline, which is why Paul uses it in this passage:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. ²⁵ Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. ²⁶ So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. ²⁷ But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”

~ 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, ESv

Here, Paul reminds us that discipline is necessary to win a race. Every athlete can testify that from experience. After all, the best marathoner said that “only the disciplined in life are free.”

In the same way, discipline is necessary for the race of the Christian life. As Paul points out here, it will keep you from disqualification.

And it will set you free.

Faithfulness gives your life a purpose

In order to find freedom and fulfillment, your life must involve faithfully “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1) before anything else.

Those of you who know more of my testimony may remember that my disciplined character has also brought me to one of my life’s lowest points. My overcommitment to success led me to mistreat my body, destroyed my mental health, and ultimately made me feel distant from God.

Hitting this low point gave me a realization much like what the author of Ecclesiastes describes:

“Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

~ Ecclesiastes 2:11, ESv

This verse’s perspective comes from a commitment to work hard without putting God in the picture. As I look back on the past few years of high school, I’ve considered how my dedication–be it to school, running, or writing–does not spell out my purpose.

I’m not the girl whose discipline allowed her to do it all “right.”

Instead, I’m the girl whose discipline allowed her to seek her God-given purpose, and only by His grace.

The same goes to you, my reader. Your purpose comes from Christ alone. And when you put God in the picture, when you dedicate your hard work to Him–That’s when you’ll find real fulfillment.

“There is nothing better for a person than that he should. . . find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God.”

~ Ecclesiastes 2:24, ESv

Your disciplined character is a gift from the hand of God. Don’t ever forget that.