There is the life we want to live. Then there are the short cuts and justifications we make because we don’t want to feel the pain to get to the life we want to live.

The brave life comes from brave decision to brave decision to brave decision. It is one after another after another. Eventually it does become easier to make those brave–and right–decisions. It becomes easier to choose hope and the struggle that comes with that over the easy choice to numb the pain. Or to live in those excuses one more day.

Faithfulness is not a onetime act, not a decision or a destination, not something to eventually be attained. Faithfulness is what we repeatedly do. It is a habit formed of long, hard obedience in the quiet.

Faithfulness can be a word that describes you.