*Excerpt from Enrico Yao-Bate's reflection journal on faithfulness and friendship.
Many people have friends, people who play with them, crack jokes with them, and laugh with them. However, not many know how to be faithful to one’s friend. Being faithful to one’s friend is in my opinion, not something very easy to do. It requires patience, forgiveness, understandingness and trust in order for someone to be faithful to one another.
Jonathan, the son of King Saul and David both showed how faithful they are to one another. Though Jonathan’s dad, King Saul was driven mad by the thought of David inheriting the throne instead of his own son, Jonathan remained truly faithful to his friendship with David. King Saul tries his best to get rid of David. Even with his throne and life at risk, Jonathan continued to help David escape the wrath of his father. Just like them, I have experienced moments in my life, where being faithful to someone is hard to do.
I was in Grade 6, somewhere in the 1st Quarter, I had a friend who would tell me a lot of personal secrets. Sometimes, it would be very challenging to keep his secrets with my other friends and I would sometimes get tempted to share it with others. But before I would do it, I would remember that that secret is not mine to tell. However one day, I accidentally revealed it to my friends when we were talking about a topic related to the secrets. I quickly realized my mistake, and tried to fix it. Luckily, they didn’t understand what I said. After that, I promised to never accidentally mention his secrets to anyone else.
Whenever I remember this experience, I would feel sad that I was unfaithful to the friendship with my friend. However, I would never let it pull me down because I decided that the experience would make me learn from my mistake and never break promises again. I feel that this experience is related to the Bible story because both of them challenged someone to be faithful to their friend. Both of the stories in my opinion, were both about people getting tempted to be unfaithful in their friendships. For the story in the Bible, Jonathan was tempted by the thought of him losing his throne while in my experience, I was tempted by a feeling that urged me to tell it to my friends.
Many young people... [can] practice the virtue of faithfulness to GOD, their family, friends and ordinary people they meet everyday. They can be faithful to those people like their loved ones by not betraying their trust and by always being with them, ready to help and guide them at all times.
Although I know some children might feel that there is no use for faithfulness in their lives, in my opinion, children like me should still practice the virtue of faithfulness in their lives. Whenever people are faithful to one another, it is a symbiotic relationship. The person who you are faithful to benefits with how you are treating him while, you will benefit because most likely, that person will also be faithful to you. Moreover, being faithful to someone, will also benefit you because you are treating GOD’s creations well meaning when you are faithful to someone, you are faithful to GOD.
Many people have friends, people who play with them, crack jokes with them, and laugh with them. However, not many know how to be faithful to one’s friend. Being faithful to one’s friend is in my opinion, not something very easy to do. It requires patience, forgiveness, understandingness and trust in order for someone to be faithful to one another.
Jonathan, the son of King Saul and David both showed how faithful they are to one another. Though Jonathan’s dad, King Saul was driven mad by the thought of David inheriting the throne instead of his own son, Jonathan remained truly faithful to his friendship with David. King Saul tries his best to get rid of David. Even with his throne and life at risk, Jonathan continued to help David escape the wrath of his father. Just like them, I have experienced moments in my life, where being faithful to someone is hard to do.
I was in Grade 6, somewhere in the 1st Quarter, I had a friend who would tell me a lot of personal secrets. Sometimes, it would be very challenging to keep his secrets with my other friends and I would sometimes get tempted to share it with others. But before I would do it, I would remember that that secret is not mine to tell. However one day, I accidentally revealed it to my friends when we were talking about a topic related to the secrets. I quickly realized my mistake, and tried to fix it. Luckily, they didn’t understand what I said. After that, I promised to never accidentally mention his secrets to anyone else.
Whenever I remember this experience, I would feel sad that I was unfaithful to the friendship with my friend. However, I would never let it pull me down because I decided that the experience would make me learn from my mistake and never break promises again. I feel that this experience is related to the Bible story because both of them challenged someone to be faithful to their friend. Both of the stories in my opinion, were both about people getting tempted to be unfaithful in their friendships. For the story in the Bible, Jonathan was tempted by the thought of him losing his throne while in my experience, I was tempted by a feeling that urged me to tell it to my friends.
Many young people... [can] practice the virtue of faithfulness to GOD, their family, friends and ordinary people they meet everyday. They can be faithful to those people like their loved ones by not betraying their trust and by always being with them, ready to help and guide them at all times.
Although I know some children might feel that there is no use for faithfulness in their lives, in my opinion, children like me should still practice the virtue of faithfulness in their lives. Whenever people are faithful to one another, it is a symbiotic relationship. The person who you are faithful to benefits with how you are treating him while, you will benefit because most likely, that person will also be faithful to you. Moreover, being faithful to someone, will also benefit you because you are treating GOD’s creations well meaning when you are faithful to someone, you are faithful to GOD.