How are you doing?
Are you holding on to your fruit?
We’re more than halfway through the fruit of the Spirit, and today we’re talking about faithfulness.
Hachiko the dog is known around the world for his unwavering faithfulness, but maybe you’ve missed his story or heard it and forgot the details. Let me fill you in. Every morning, he watched his master—a professor at Tokyo University in the 1920s—board a train at the Shibuya Train Station in Tokyo, Japan. Every evening, he rushed back to the station to greet his master when he stepped off the train. Day in and day out, Hachiko faithfully waited. One evening, when Hachiko was only two years old, he anticipated his master’s arrival as usual at the station. But his master didn’t get off the train. Hachiko waited and waited until the last train of the evening. Then, he reluctantly went home.
The evening of the next day, Hachiko trotted back to the train station at the precise time that his master’s train was to arrive. And he waited. The last train arrived, no master.
How was a dog to understand that his master had died suddenly and unexpectedly while at work?
For ten years, Hachiko made his way to the train station at the time his master’s train arrived. Same time. Every day. Waiting expectantly. Searching the faces for his master.
His actions did not go unseen. “People started calling him ‘Chuken-Hachiko’, which in Japanese means ‘Hachiko – the faithful dog’.”
Relationships begin in all sorts of ways. The movie, Hachi: A Dog’s Tale, is based on the true story of Hachiko. In the movie, the relationship between the professor and the dog he rescued begins with four simple words, “Hey, buddy. You lost?” Then the professor reaches down, scoops the puppy up into his arms, and takes him home.
The rest is history.
The professor (in the movie) diligently demonstrates love to Hachi. Even though Hachi seems untrainable at first, he soon becomes an obedient friend. The professor nurtures him. Feeds him. Gives him a place to sleep. He showers him with love. It is up to Hachi, though, to accept that love. And he does. He receives the love he is given and chooses to love his master in return. Hachi’s faithfulness to his master endures beyond the end of his master’s life, until his own final breath.
Like Hachi, many of us are lost. Abandoned. Frightened. Vulnerable. No place to go.
No matter who we are, where we’ve been, or what we’ve done—there is Someone eager to take us in. Someone who wants to rescue us. Even when we feel like we have been left to fend for ourselves and make it on our own, God is there.
God is faithful, even when we are faithless. He reaches down to lift us up into His loving arms. But whether or not we remain there is up to us. The choice is ours. If you and I don’t choose to be rescued by God, He will not force it upon us. He is eager to train us and desires that we be obedient to Him. He wants to nurture us. He wants to feed us. He has prepared a home for us.
King David writes:
“He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
…He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
… but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
God delights in us. He desires a relationship with us. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And, because His love for us is true, unfailing, and unconditional, when we accept His love—His one and only Son—He adopts us into His family. He is faithful and wants our faithfulness in return.
In fact, all of Christianity is based on our faith that God is who He says He is, and on our acceptance of Jesus as our Savior. Our faithfulness is a response to God’s and is expressed through our commitment to keep God’s commandments, summarized into loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
God’s not dead. No, our Master is very much alive. And He desires our faithfulness to the end of our days.
So, I encourage you to hold on to your fruit. Delight in God. Express your faithfulness by your commitment to love Him and love His people.
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Read the entire series-Hold On to Your Fruit!