Relying on the promises of God: Part One

My friends, I would like to first say that I’m so sorry for taking so long to post another blog! Life has been hectic with school, sick kids, church activities, and physical therapy! The time just slipped away from me, and here we are, two weeks later, and I am finally writing something else! Thank you all for your patience!

What is a promise?

I want to talk a bit about the promises of God. But in order to really understand His promises, we need to first understand what a promise is. A promise is defined as

To tell someone that you will definitely do something.

onelook.com

That is how the world defines a promise. But how does the Bible define a promise?

The promises of God reveal His particular and eternal purposes to which He is unchangeably committed and upon which believers can totally depend.

Dictionary of Bible Themes

In both definitions, it’s clear to see that a promise is a big thing. It’s important, and something that we wouldn’t want to go back on. But can you think of a time where someone has broken a promise to you? Or can you think of a time where you broke a promise to someone else? If you could see me now, I’m raising both my hands! We get to a point where we either don’t make promises anymore, or don’t believe promises being made to us, because we aren’t wanting to break them or get disappointed when someone breaks theirs. Sometimes, because we’re sinful, we use promises to get something that we want, or to get out of something, or to just be sneaky. Sometimes people use promises intending to break it, and then hurt the person who they made that promise to. Promises weren’t meant to be weapons to use against each other.

It reminds me of an episode from an Australian kid’s show, Bluey. The episode is called Promises. In this episode Bluey and her dad keep breaking their promises, or using their promises to get back at one another. But after seeing how much Bluey’s little sister Bingo trusts their mom’s promise, Bluey learns the power of promises and why it’s important not to break them, or use them against someone. One thing I love about this episode is that it shows that even the dad was using a promise as a weapon against Bluey, and they weren’t understanding how important promises truly are. When someone says “I promise” to you, you cling to that, and you put your faith in that! You don’t use a promise to embarrass or hurt someone.

Now, I understand the times when our promises are broken and do hurt someone. You may not have meant to break it and hurt that person, but sometimes that happens accidentally. We’re humans, and sometimes we want to keep these promises and sometimes we can’t, no matter how hard we try. Remember that kid show I talked about earlier, Bluey? The whole episode started with the dad taking Bluey and her sister Bingo to an indoor trampoline park. While they were driving there, Bluey had asked her dad to take them to the library afterwards. Her dad said he promised he would take them after. By the time they got out, it was later in the day, and the library had closed. Bluey was upset with her dad because he broke the promise he made to her. As a parent, I got annoyed for the dad because there was nothing he could do! The library had closed. He can’t help it! But if you look at Bluey’s side, you also understand why she was upset. Bluey is young enough where she didn’t fully understand that the library was closed, so the dad had no choice but to break his promise.

I always try my best to not make promises to my kids, that I’m afraid I can’t keep. I don’t want to disappoint or hurt them. Do I always succeed in that? Definitely not. But there is one thing that I am truly thankful for, that we have a God that keeps His promises to us!

Why God’s promises are different

What an incredible reminder for us. We have this God that not only makes these promises to us, but He also keeps them! When He makes us a promise, we know it will happen. It may not happen right away, or when we think it should, but we can rest assure that it will happen! My next post I want to take a deeper look into the God’s promises and relying on them day to day!

Remember friends, promises aren’t meant to be used as weapons, or something to just say even when we don’t mean it. Promises are important, and something that we should take seriously, especially if we’ve made one to anyone!

Until next time!