What is your response when someone makes you a promise?  All of us have experienced the heartbreak of a broken promise.  I’m reminded of the story of a dying man who gave each of his friends — a lawyer, doctor and clergyman — an envelope containing $25,000 in cash to be placed in his coffin.

A week later the man dies and the friends each place an envelope in the coffin. Several months later, the clergyman confesses that he only put $10,000 in the envelope and sent the rest to a mission in South America.

The doctor confesses that his envelope had only $8,000 because he donated to a medical charity.

The lawyer is outraged, “I am the only one who kept my promise to our dying friend. I want you both to know that the envelope I placed in the coffin contained my own personal check for the entire $25,000.”

Promises may be made with the best of intentions but the exigency of the moment may cause people to reconsider.  It’s probably useless to hold a person to anything he says while he is drunk or running for office.  Promises are like babies, they’re easy to make but  they can be hard to deliver.  Niccolò Machiavelli wrote, “The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”

You must realize that the validity of the promise is based upon the trustworthiness of the one making the promise.  No one is as trustworthy as God, that’s why we can rely upon His promises.  That was the faith that Abraham demonstrated as God gave him a seemingly impossible promise that he would have many descendants even though he was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old (Romans 4:19) and his wife Sarah had no children.  Abraham believed the promise of God,

yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform.  (Romans 4:20-21)

This is why Abraham was considered a great man of faith – he took God at His word and believed His promises.  It’s been said that no pillow is as soft as God’s promise.  The Bible a book that is filled with promises.  Are you experiencing a valley in your life?  Go to God’s word, His promises are like the stars – the darker the night the brighter they shine.  May you be encouraged by God’s promises to you,

For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.   (2 Corinthians 1:20)

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark

Professor of Discipleship, Columbia International University

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