Building One Another

PROMISES, Vol 8 No 23

June 9, 2009

Dear Friend,

When our children were little we learned how literally they took our words.

I would say something like, “Tomorrow we will go get ice cream cones,” or “Saturday we will go see a movie,” and the kids assumed that is what we were going to do.

Then something in life intervened, the phone rang or somebody dropped by or a forgotten obligation surfaced or some other circumstance interfered and we would not do what we had said we would do.

You can imagine the reaction of our children!

The kids were naturally frustrated and would say, “But you promised!”

And they were right. We had said, “This is what we will do!” but we hadn’t done it! They legitimately felt let down.

We learned to differentiate between a promise and a plan. “We plan to go to the movies tonight.” A plan can be changed even if it is disappointing when that happens. We learned to be clear if something was a plan or a promise.

We wanted to teach our children to know that a promise is a promise and that promises are to be kept. A good lesson for adults too! “We promise you may stay up tonight,” means you may stay up tonight. Period!

Our loving Lord has made many wonderful promises – and keeps them! “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ.”
II Corinthians 1:20* A kept promise is a “yes” that blesses and enriches life.

With joy - E. Stanley Ott
Copyright 2009 E. Stanley Ott
*Scripture from the NIV