Promises Made

As seen in the HEARTbeat and the Village Voice

“Promises Made”

            “I promise, I promise!”  Oh, no, a two-promise promise!  We as kids made this very promise to someone.  We were trying to convince them we really did mean what we were saying.  People, especially kids, can be skeptical, so we had to convey in some manner what we were saying was the truth.  It worked sometime, and sometimes it didn’t.  I guess it depended on our promises made and kept from our past.

            We make several promises in our lifetimes.  If you have ever been elected to public office, you took an oath, or promise, to uphold certain criteria as you served.  If you’ve served in the military, you took an oath to support and defend the constitution and this great country against all enemies.  These are easy promises to point out.  But did you know you took an oath when you took out a loan to purchase a vehicle or maybe a house?  Yes, you signed a promissory note.  You promised to repay the loan under specific conditions, usually a method called the loan repayment schedule.  I’m not sure if the loan company still gives them out, but on my first house we received an amortization schedule.  You’ve made a promise.  As the saying goes, we’re only as good as our word.

            Face it, we make promises all the time.  But when we promise we will do something, are we willing to fulfill that promise, no matter what?  What if the circumstances change and we are unable to fulfill it.  Do we just let the promise expire or do we attempt to justify our inability to make it happen?  In these times of political clamor, we hear a lot of promises made by those running for office.  Sadly, most or all of those promises go unkept.  The sad part of it is, we really don’t expect them to be kept!  Why do we have such low expectations?

            As a human race, we’ve made promises throughout the millennia only to break those promises.  The nation of Israel made a promise to follow the Ten Commandments only to break that promise later.  Several times the nation of Israel would come back to God only to once again stray.  Finally, God had enough.

            There was only one way to an iron-clad promise to God’s pinnacle of creation – mankind.  He sent His only Son to be a sacrifice, all in accordance with the Law.  God promised if anyone would believe in Jesus as God’s only Son, and who gave His life to atone for the sins of the world, God promised that person eternal life with Him in Heaven.

            God has made several promises to mankind.  They are called prophesies.  God spoke through the prophets to make promises, and He fulfilled each one and will fulfill all of them.  When God makes a promise, He keeps it.

            Knowing all this, God has made a promise to us, just as He did with Joshua that He will never leave us nor forsake us.  Plainly put, He will walk beside us all day long.  And when trouble rears its ugly head, He will always help us through it!

            Walk today in the confidence of knowing the Creator of the universe is right beside you!