Sentinel Watch December 17, 2012 ISSUE

Taking a stand for fidelity

Susan Mack—St. Louis, Missouri, US

This article originally appeared online in The Christian Science Monitor at CSMonitor.com.

The recent infidelity scandal involving top US government and military personnel continues to grab headlines. When the news first broke, I was feeling bad for everyone involved—betrayed spouses, embarrassed family members, colleagues who had respected these individuals, people with careers of so much goodness that were now in ruins, and our whole country. It seems that so often when we hold someone up as a good role model, we find their feet are made of clay.

Then, a couple of days ago, as I was doing my early morning praying, I mentally heard a spiritual command: “You must take a strong stand for fidelity.” I recognized this as a message from God to pray for this situation. On one level, this was a command to take a stand for the importance of marital fidelity. But at a deeper level, this message from God involved a more fundamental demand for fidelity—to be faithful to God and to what God sees and knows about each of us as His pure spiritual ideas and to take a stand for God’s fidelity in unfailingly caring for and upholding His entire creation.