CONSTANTLY CONSISTENT
READ: ISAIAH 26: 1-9
You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, whose thoughts are fixed on you. (V. 3)
Keying police efforts to build and maintain trust within the communities they serve is the consistent display of integrity of thought, word, and action by every member of the department. Their personal and professional conduct must be unified by the values of integrity; fairness; respect; servanthood; humility; responsibility; and honor. These are the foundational building blocks required to foster an environment of mutual trust and respect. When these building blocks erode, law enforcement efforts become superficial, resulting in a fragile police community partnership detrimental to public safety and wellbeing. In short, those sworn to protect and serve, must be constantly consistent in the performance of their duties, at the highest levels of professional responsibility, every hour, every day.
Isaiah reminds us that Christians must remain consistent in their trust of God at every stage of their lives. This is absolutely essential if we are to do our best to engage in Christ modeled righteous living each day here on earth. But the sobering reality is that embracing the concept of righteous living and putting it into transformational action is difficult for residents of the “Lower Story.” More often than not, we strive harder to trust and follow Jesus when we are facing adversity but when things are smooth sailing, we quickly fall into the “stupor of self-sufficiency,” as noted by Christian devotional writer Sarah Young. This erodes our faith in Christ and quickly sets us up for the prideful fall mentioned by Isaiah in today’s reading. We become like police officers, whose actions have created an atmosphere of community distrust and find themselves in an adversarial and isolated relationship with the people they have sworn to protect. Apart from the community they can accomplish nothing; apart from Christ we share that plight. (John 15:5)
While community trust can be rebuilt, the desire, discipline, resolve and dedication to make this happen will require years to accomplish. In our lives of faith, we have in our favor, a God who has always been constantly consistent in his loving, forgiving, and salvation granting demeanor towards us as evidenced by the giving of Jesus for our redemption! Trusting Jesus and the Holy Spirit, our lives, despite our many trials and tribulations, can be ones that know true peace with God. A constantly consistent Christian life requires this extra ordinary effort on our part!
PAUSE FOR REFLECTION AND PRAYER
The only way to flourish in our faith is to earnestly seek God from our hearts and to desire to glorify Him in all that we do.
Dear Father God, help us to always trust in Your ways for You are our everlasting eternal rock.
You’re Brother in Christ,
Fred Ailes