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Loyalty
Showing genuine commitment to relationships despite hardships
Betrayal. This one word carries with it perhaps the heaviest burden of pain, grief,
and bitterness of all the thousands of words in the English language. It encapsulates
the root issue behind divorce, teenage rebellion, marital unfaithful-ness, gossip, war,
and a host of other human woes. It breaks hearts, builds walls, kills you, and breeds hatred.
In a world filled with a selfish disregard for the duties that relations ships demand,
how can we remain true to the people in our lives?
The answer lies in two words: duty and love. Unfortunately, the concept of duty has fallen
on hard times. It is derided by cynics as archaic and out-of-date. Why? Because duty tells
us that we are responsible to act in certain ways, re-gardless of our own interests or feelings.
This goes against the grain of our own human natures. It is easy to act loving, to support
someone when they are successful, to stand by someone when they show no signs of weakness.
But the true test of loyalty comes when your friends hurt your feelings, when your children
dash your hopes, and when your spouse fails your expectations. When we understand that we
have a responsi-bility—a duty—to remain faithful, loving, and supportive to the flawed people
in our lives, we will become loyal, faithful people.
But the concept of duty cannot stand alone. It has gotten its bad name partly because some
have tried to divorce it from a heart of love. For example, imag-ine this scenario between
a husband and wife: the husband arrives home from work and announces that he is taking his
wife out for dinner. Over the course of the evening, he presents her with a beautiful gift.
The next morning, the wife expresses her gratitude for her husband’s expression of love.
She realizes that he sacrificed a great deal of hard earned money to give her such a lovely
even-ing and gift. “It was nothing, honey,” he replies, “Just doing my duty.”
“What?” Suddenly the value and joy of the gift is diminished. Her thoughts whirl, “He did
all that only because he felt that he ought to?”
A sense of duty can help us to stand by someone when it is unpleasant and difficult. But
going through the motions of love without having a genuine motiva-tion of love is not true
loyalty. While duty can help us to control our surface emotions of distaste or disappointment,
it is love—deep-rooted love—that should be the driving reason behind our faithful performance
of our duties.
Loyalty matters-because love is not just a feeling; it’s an act of your will.
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Neely's Bend Church of Christ
1502 Neely's Bend
Madison, Tennessee 37115
Phone (615) 865-1836
Email us here
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