My spouse loves change. His personality and nature crave variety and starting new things. He’s an ideas guy who thrives on developing something from scratch or improving an existing system. This means he is often the one to go once he’s done all he can.

Dean (not his real name) started as a clerk in a bank, worked his way up, became Vice President, and eventually retired from the same company. His personality and nature craved the constancy of staying with one employer even though his held different roles.

My specific Christian heritage taught me Dean exemplified faithfulness—a Godly trait—and my husband demonstrated instability—less than Godly, perhaps even a quitter.

But what is faithfulness? How does it differ from loyalty? Should one be loyal to an agency? A team? For how long? Under what circumstances? Is one unfaithful if they leave? Is seeking change wrong or simply another approach to life? What constitutes a long term commitment? Fifty years or five?

The author of Hebrews sheds some light on this topic:

We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Hebrews 6:11–12 NIV

In other words, be diligent to the end and imitate those with great faith and perseverance (like Abraham in this particular passage) who obtained life in God’s forever kingdom. This sounds like faithfulness is about following Jesus, not about our vocation. While we do need to be good examples as an employee or gospel messenger (Colossians 3:22), this verse is about not being lazy in our walk with the Lord.

With the emergence of assessments and personality tests, I have learned that loving change or preferring consistency are simply two different ways to approach life. Let’s accept both and work together to build God’s kingdom.

The Apostle Paul spells out just how to be faithfully follow Jesus: Be kind, humble, loving, hospitable. Forgive one another, work at living in peace with each other, and love one another (Colossians 3:12–15). And Scripture even tells us the very areas of building God’s kingdom that we are all called to be diligent in: sharing the gospel (Acts 1:8), discipling others (Matthew 28:20), serving those in need (James 2:15–16), fighting against injustice (James 1:27).

Building God’s kingdom requires all kinds of people with all sorts of gifts and talents. We need the ideas people who can get something started and move on (like my husband). We also need those that plug away at one task for a long time (like Dean).

Let’s determine if we are staying because we don’t like change and are loyal to a task, ministry, or employer (thinking that this means we are faithful). Conversely, perhaps we go because we desire change and want to start something new (and maybe feeling guilty that we are unfaithful). Rather, let’s “hold fast to the hope set before us, the anchor of our souls” (Hebrews 6:18–19), and stay or go as God leads.

In what way(s) might you have confused faithfulness and loyalty?

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For a deep dive into this topic (and more), see Grit to Stay Grace to Go: Staying Well in Cross-Cultural Ministry by Sue Eenigenburg and Eva Burkholder.

According to Britannica, loyalty is a person’s devotion or sentiment of attachment to a particular object, which may be another person or group of persons, an ideal, a duty, or a cause.