Virtues Quick to Fly

Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you;
bind them around your neck;
write them on the tablet of your heart.
(Proverbs 3:3 ESV)

Steadfast love and faithfulness are virtues quick to take flight. We must not let them run when we are most susceptible to forgetting them. Though we may at many points say that they are fine things to have with us, great substances to display and share with others, they must be exercised even when they are not our immediate consideration. Indeed, they must be bound to us now when they seem as noble virtues; they must be put upon us as between the head and shoulders, fastened with a lock that has no key. Quick to run from the heart to the mouth, they must be stopped at the neck. We would also do well to have them carved into our hearts, so that, when from our souls something contrary to them would desire to flow, they must pass the etched sign of "steadfast love and faithfulness," hearing their rebuke and being caught short before springing forth. Let them not be the quickly deserting virtues that our flesh longs for them them to be. Through the binding of them around our necks and the tattooing of them on our hearts, enemy vices face double the gates before any expression.