Loyalty

In the book The Odyssey of Homer, Homer portrays a picture of a very faithful wife in the character Penelope. Though her husband has been gone for 20 years and all say that he is dead, she continues to believe that he is out there and will return soon. The result of this is that she continually refuses the suitors request that she marry one of them. She will not give up on her husband. This brings me to the subject of loyalty.

In many ways our culture has turned away from the true concept of loyalty-friends, marriages, pastors, politicians, and business agreements. Everyone is full of greed, ambition, and selfishness, the three things which destroy loyalty. Companies and businesses do whatever it takes to build themselves up. More than 60% of today’s marriages end up in divorce. Friends will turn around and stab you in the back for their own gain. All these display a lack and loss of loyalty.

One of the greatest examples of disloyalty is seen in Israel. God had delivered Israel from Egypt and had shown them many signs. He made a covenant with them and gave them His law’s. While in the wilderness He provided and protected them through all dangers. When they had no water, He provided it from a rock. When they had no food, He poured down quail and manna. When their enemies were great in numbers, He delivered them into their hands. Continually He kept them under His wings. Yet Ps. 78 says “In spite of all this, they still sinned; despite his wonders, they did not believe…Their heart was not steadfast toward him; they were not faithful to his covenant.” Israel rejected God and His covenant! No matter what He did and showed them, they were a stiff-necked people and rebelled.

Now look to vs. 38 and 39 “Yet he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them; he restrained his anger often and did not stir up all his wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes and comes not again.” God never gave up on us, though He punished us He still atoned for us. It says that He didn’t show all His wrath…just enough to where we were still allowed to live. Then He sent His Son to die for us. We have been given the New Covenant and we must strive to be faithful to it, and not be the Israel of old.

So when you say the words “as long as we both shall live” remember that you are entering into a life long covenant. Marriage is a covenant instituted by God and one must stay faithful to it. Remember Penelope, the ever faithful wife of Odysseus.

-Kaila Anderson