Would you want to marry someone you don't love, or that doesn't love you? If you really loved that person, wouldn't you want that person to stay with you always, to never cheat on you or leave you for someone else?

On the contrary, we naturally want our loved ones to always love us, to be there for us, to never let other things or other people stand in the way of their commitment to us. When someone we love betrays or abandons us, the pain can be unbearable, our lives and happiness ruined. Only if our love has already grown cold could their faithlessness fail to devastate us.

But think: How big is your own commitment? Do you have in the back of your mind that if things don't work out, you can always get a divorce? If you feel restricted in your career ambitions, if you can't have children or can't agree on having them, if the romance wears off, or if you find someone you like better, you can always leave? Have you ever backed out on a commitment, on any level, and justified it by saying that it was harder than you thought, not worth it, or not what you expected? If you have any conception, in the very slightest, that you might somehow, some day, back out on your commitment to a loved one, then you yourself have the potential for faithlessness.

The fact is that we all have that potential, though we might be in denial, or naive enough to think we would never do such a thing under any circumstances. Faithlessness is the way of the world these days, and unfortunately the way of many Christians. The divorce rate among Christians is as bad as the world's. Many of my classmates in Bible college who married after graduation are now divorced. And it is difficult any more for a pastor to find church workers who will truly follow through on their commitments. 

As Christians, we need to take our commitments with utter seriousness and not enter them lightly. We need to take measures to assure ourselves of the faithfulness of those we choose to love and to whom we commit, before we commit. Then we must truly commit. We must guard ourselves so that we are not led astray by our own lusts or ambitions, or give in to the temptation to take the easy way out of difficulties. And most of all, we must keep in mind that we have a Judge who is watching, and is the ultimate Avenger for all innocent victims.

"And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:7-8).

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