April 01st, 2022

These are turbulent times in which we live. Many of us are looking for some degree of certainty, predictability, something we can depend on. We know, by faith, that the promises God makes to us, He will keep. But we sometimes  forget the importance for each of us of a promise kept. For my article this month I would like to reprint an article I came across back in 2009 by Lewis Smedes that talks about the power of promises and how we become more like God when we keep ours.
 
Somewhere a father is telling himself, "I wish my daughter would pack up, leave home, and never come back; God knows she has driven us crazy." But he remembers a promise he made when she was baptized, and he sticks with her in hurting love.
 
Somewhere a woman is telling herself, "I want to get out of this marriage and start over with someone who really loves me; God knows the clod I married has given me reason for cashing him in." But she remembers a promise she made when she married him, and she sticks with him in hopeful love.
 
Somewhere a minister is telling himself, "I want to chuck this job and get into something with a better payoff; God knows my congregation has   given me second-degree burnout." But he remembers the promise he made when he was ordained, and he sticks with the church in pastoral love.
 
Some people still make promises and keep those they make. When they do, they help make life around them more stably human. Promise keeping is a powerful means of grace in a time when people hardly depend on each other to remember and live by their word.
 
Yes, somewhere people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised once to see it through. They stick to lost causes. They hold on to a love grown cold. They stay with people who have become pains in the neck. They still dare to make promises and care enough to keep the promises they make. I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not  desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God.
 
What a marvelous thing a promise is! When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable     future and makes one thing predictable: she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay. When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing: he will be there no matter what the    circumstances turn out to be. With one simple word of  promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty.
When a person makes a   promise, she stakes a claim on her personal freedom and  power.
When you make a promise, you take a hand in creating your own future.

(Citation: Lewis Smedes, "The Power of  Promises," A Chorus of Witnesses, edited by Long and Plantinga (Eerdmans, 1994))
May we each grow in our knowledge of the promises of God and their certainty. And may we each commit to be like the   Psalmist’s description of the person who fears the Lord, “He takes an oath to his own detriment, and does not change” (Psalm 15:4 nasb).
 
In Christ our living hope,