As the iron bars thunder upward, you’re deafened by the roar of the drunken crowd. Alcohol sloshes from their cups, greasy meat clinging to the corners of lips placing bets on which of your family members will die first. Music. Cheering. Heckling. Flirting. Time slows to a crawl, and you notice how Rome’s breeze scratches against your exposed skin. Guards push you forward with the end of their spears, a mixture of boredom and disgust in their voices, and after weeks of being chained in the dark, the sun’s heat washes you white when you step out into that holy circus where so many have gone ahead. “Jesus,” you whisper, “make me brave. Don’t let me fail You now.” Then the gate across the arena trembles, beginning its agonizingly slow ascent toward the freedom of lions starved for days. Your last breath is a hymn.

We serve a good God, and I’m constantly finding new favorite things about Him. One such example is His habit of building reminders into the culture of His people. He knew we have terribly short memory spans, and His compassion toward us prompted an insistence on visuals that would bring us back to truth. There’s a great story in Joshua 4 where the Lord calls His leaders to pile up some big river rocks so that “When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.”

One who searches Scripture cannot manage to escape the faithfulness of God: it’s the ink that forms the print and is present everywhere from “in the beginning” to “come, Lord Jesus.” His promises, His acts, His attitudes, His character—it’s all steeped in His faithfulness.

Our culture doesn’t value faithfulness very highly, and the “muchness” of the concept has leaked out like an old balloon. Can we take just a minute to restore its substance? (I promise it matters.) Faithfulness is the quality of being firm in adherence to promises or steadfast in affection; it’s a deep loyalty or unswerving reliability; and it implies a long-continued, consistent fidelity. Sound like something from an old dictionary? Let’s apply it to you.