Don’t Be a Quisling

Bible Reading: Psalm 89:1-8

0 Lord God Almighty! Where is there anyone as mighty as you, Lord? Faithfulness is your very character. Psalm 89:8

DO YOU KNOW what a quisling is? (It’s a real word. We didn’t make it up.)

If somebody calls you a “quisling,” you should be offended. It’s the same as calling someone a “Judas” or “Benedict Arnold.”

You see, Vidkun Quisling was a politician in Norway when Adolph Hitler became the leader of Germany. When the Nazis invaded Norway in 1940, Quisling cooperated with the Germans, and the Germans rewarded him by making him the “prime minister” of Norway in 1942. He sold out his king and his country to get what he wanted. He also imprisoned and killed people who were still loyal to the king but who had escaped to England after the German invasion. After Germany lost the war, Quisling was arrested, tried, and executed by a Norwegian court. Ever since that time, quisling has been another word for traitor.

How would you like for your name to become a way to call someone a traitor? That would be a real bummer, wouldn’t it? You don’t want to be known as a traitor, do you? You want people to think of you as loyal and trustworthy, right?

Of course you do. Most people do. Nobody wants to be known as a quisling, because betraying your friends, family, country, or God is wrong. But why is it wrong? Why does almost everyone despise what Quisling did? Why is it wrong to be a quisling? And why is it right to be faithful to your friends, family, country, or God?

Faithfulness is right because God is faithful. Faithfulness is right because being faithful is being like God. The psalmist sang to God, “Young and old will hear of your faithfulness. . . . Your faithfulness is as enduring as the heavens. . . . Faithfulness is your very character” (Psalm 89:1-2, 8). The reason that unfaithfulness is wrong is because that quality is not like God.

So don’t be a quisling. Instead, be faithful to your friends, family, country, and God.

REFLECT: What does it mean to be faithful? Does it mean keeping promises? Does it mean not talking behind someone’s back? Does it mean not doing something that would hurt the other person? Does it mean something else? Think about what it means to be faithful by completing the following sentences:

• Being faithful to my friends means___________________.

• Being faithful to my family means____________________.

• Being faithful to my country means____________________.

• Being faithful to my God means______________________.

PRAY: “God, your faithfulness is as enduring as the heavens. Please help me to be more like you. Make me—and keep me—faithful to you, to my country, to my family, and to my friends.”