LOYALTY & NOBLE PLANS

From Noble Plans

Back in the day it was called “fealty,” a French word from the Latin fidelitas, where we also get our word “fidelity.” Unless you’re reading a medieval treatise or novel though, you don’t encounter “fealty” very often. Today’s close approximation is “loyalty.”

Again, back in the day, everyone, from peasant to lord owed fealty—loyalty—to the king. At times this was assumed, as from a peasant to his noble. At others, it was a service performed by nobles to their monarch (sometimes a new king), when oaths of loyalty were sworn and enforced. To break a vow of loyalty could mean death.

Today, unless you’re talking about your dog, loyalty is not given much thought. Employees and employers are often only interested in loyalty as far as the law requires them to be loyal. Brand loyalty, a much sought-after trait by marketers of yesteryear, is passé as everyone hops from one deal to the next best deal. For some, even friendships and marriages deserve loyalty, but only as long as the relationship meets their perceived needs and keeps them “happy.”

For the Christian, loyalty can be a lonely business. Sticking to your convictions can cost friends and even family members. It can cost you your business, your happiness. In short: loyalty costs.

Oswald Chambers, I think, helps put it all into perspective: “Christian service is not our work; loyalty to Jesus is our work.” You can have all the noble plans in the world, but if your loyalty is misplaced, focused more on the plan than on the Person, then your noble plans have forgotten the key component. Even God tells us, “For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice,” (Hosea 6:6).

As you pursue life and your noble plans, it is good to keep in mind that “He who pursues righteousness and loyalty finds life, righteousness, and honor” (Pr 21:21).

How loyal are you?


"A noble man devises noble plans; and by noble plans he stands" – Isaiah 32:8