Guide me by your fidelity and teach me your ways...

The idea of God’s fidelity struck me in this excerpt from a prayer I found based on Psalms 25. Faithfulness and fidelity; are they the same thing?  For some reason fidelity seems to be a bit more if that is possible.  God’s fidelity isn’t directed toward me; it casts a wider net.

God’s work and my work and the world’s going on are intertwined; not simply separate duties so to speak.  Even though I am in the midst of the work I do now, new opportunities are beginning to be front and center.  I selected text books for courses I will teach in the fall, put my upcoming position as my workplace on a new project, and am cleaning out files and furniture that no longer will serve us there.

The idea of fidelity reminded me that this move is more than “a job” as always and  a place of possibility for all of us involved.   This place and I found each other and God was in the thick of it.  That’s what God’s fidelity means to me; not that I found a place that is a good fit for me– and this new position certainly is– but also part of God’s fidelity is that I meet the university’s need.  I am the person God sent to them.

Buechner again adds his insight,

We can speak of a man’s choosing his vocation, but perhaps it is at least as accurate to speak of a vocation’s choosing the man, of a call’s being given and a man’s hearing it, or not hearing it.  And maybe that is the place to start: the business of listening and hearing. A man’s life is full of all sorts of voices calling him in all sorts of directons.  Some of them are voices from inside and some of them are voices from outside. The more alive and alert we are, the more clamorous our lives are.  Which do we listen to?  What kind of voice do we listen for?

The dictionary definition of “fidelity” is faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.  God’s fidelity works through all of those: persons, causes, beliefs so that somehow all the myriad of voices and experiences come together. And with a bit of luck and listening, we find that way.