Promises, Promises...

A promise is a promise is a promise.
The strength of a promise is based on the commitment of the one making it.
It is made without regard to the forces that may be brought to bear to try to make me break it. And those forces will be brought to bear.
The moment I make a promise everything that could be a threat to my fulfillment of it is automatically emphasized. All around me I see the roadblocks that would keep me from reaching my goal. Too often I focus so intently on not breaking the promise that I forget the promise itself. I get so caught up in thinking about the responsibilities I have taken on in relation to the promise that I fulfill it simply out of fear of the consequences if I fail. I forget the benefits and impact of a promise fulfilled.
There is a saying that says promises are made to be broken. That is simply a lie the world tells me to accommodate my failure.
That is not to say that promises aren’t broken.
I was recently challenged to list 10 promises that I have broken. It was a process made all the more painful by the realization that I could easily have listed many more than 10. Often a promise made is really made to more than one person so that once broken the failed promise impacts all to which it was implied. But the exercise made me realize how glibly promises are often made. A promise doesn’t always begin with the words “I promise”. A promise is made sometimes by our actions, like a regularly scheduled date. Sometimes it is a result of our traditions, like my Grandmother’s birthday cakes. Everyone always got a birthday cake from my Grandma with a cake ornament in the middle to which was attached a string with little prizes attached. I knew when I pulled the decoration off there was treasure to be had underneath. Sometimes a promise is assumed based on our knowledge of the person making it. I have friends who will not make a promise unless they are absolutely certain they can fulfill it. It would take their death or the death of someone close to them to keep them from keeping it. Regardless of the circumstance or conditions we expect that which we consider a promise to be fulfilled. When it is not then we deal with the heartbreak and disappointment accordingly. The promise breaker may not even be aware of his/her failure yet our trust in that individual is based on his/her consistency in fulfilling their promises. Who we are to others is often defined by the promises we make, or become, to them. So it is not the promise itself that reflects our hope, but the means by which, or the person in whom, it is fulfilled.
Promises are made without definite knowledge of how they will be threatened, but with the knowledge that they can be threatened. If we knew ahead of time the trials we may face because we make a promise we may not go ahead with it. But the fact that we make a promise must include our commitment to its fulfillment regardless of the challenge.
I think we grow into our ability to keep our promises. When the promise is new and young so is the strength of our commitment. As the promise endures so must our commitment to it.
My wife has had to deal with some severe medical problems with lasting effects for the last several years. Some time ago someone asked me how she was doing. As I detailed all that my wife had gone through she said something that, while complimentary, made me wonder if I am disconnected from the rest of the world.
She said, “You are a good man. It’s amazing that you are still married with all that you’ve gone through. Most men would have left.”
Now that statement probably came out of this woman’s personal experience, but I have a hard time imagining that I am the exception. Most men I know would never think about leaving their wives because they became ill. Our marriage vows incorporate every type of circumstance that could be viewed as a threat: “for better, for worse, for richer for poor, in sickness and in health…” It seems pretty clear to me.
The marriage vows are a promise.
My love is a promise. In one of his sonnets Shakespeare wrote,

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not Love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever Love’d.”

Every relationship has its rocky times. There are days when we may not want to be around each other very much, but that does not diminish our love for each other. Those times are painful precisely because we love each other. Those moments are very brief because we are committed to keeping our promise to each other.
When Sue and I first began to talk about marriage we started to examine our relationship more closely. We talked about the impact of our potential commitment to one another. With stars in our eyes we said even if one of us was paralyzed we would remain fully committed to each other and care for each other through it all and life would just be wonderful. Well, now reality has set in for us, and while neither of us is paralyzed there are some serious long term health issues being dealt with in our household. They are having a significant impact on all of our lives. But guess what? “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds”. The promise we made still stands. Neither illness nor conflict will be allowed to defeat it. There is no easy way out, nor is there a need for one. Our commitment, our promise, is greater than our pain, our trials, and our deficiencies. To break the promise opens the floodgate on doubt and exposes us to violation, mistrust and even hate. It can bring about the complete perversion of the true intent of the promise. Promise requires sacrifice. The moment it is made I have determined that it will, by nature, supercede other commitments. A promise is something we sacrifice other things for, because what it represents to us is more important than our own immediate need. It gives us an often prophetic look into a future without it whenever we are reminded of it.

God has made many promises to man. He has not broken one of them.
He promised Abraham that he would be the father of a nation, and gave him his son Isaac. Then he told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac on the altar.
Think of all the conflicts this created.
God Promised Abraham he would be a father of a nation.
As a means of fulfilling that promise God gave him a son.
Now God is seemingly taking away that Promise.
Herein lays the power of this Promise. The power of this Promise is that it was believed.
Abraham did not doubt that God would fulfill His Promise, so even when what God told him to do appeared to contradict everything he knew about God he still prepared himself to do it. He knew what God could do, and what He said He would do, and he never doubted. That’s not to say that he was not subject to anguish in making that decision. The Bible does not tell us the thoughts that were going through Abraham’s mind during that time, but because he was human and loved his son I think it is safe to make the assumption that he was in pain over this.
But here again we see the power of this Promise.
His faith in what God had told him reconciled whatever conflicts he faced. His faith in the power of the Promise of God overcame his agony.
Isaac was not a spectator in this either. Isaac was young. He was strong enough to haul the wood up the mountain for the sacrifice. He was aware of his place in the Promise. When Isaac was born Abraham was 102 years old, so we know Isaac was the stronger of the two. When Abraham bound Isaac in preparation for the sacrifice and laid him across the altar he could have easily resisted. He could have fought his father, but Isaac too, knew the power of the Promise God had made. He had the faith of his father. He knew that because God had made the promise it would be fulfilled, and so he sacrificed himself willingly.
God provided another sacrifice, but nothing could prove Isaac and Abraham’s commitment to the Promise more than their willingness to give what was most dear to them to fulfill it.
So this is what I learned about my Promise:
God is fully committed to any Promise He makes.
When I make a promise before Him, when I invoke His name in a Promise that is clearly within His will, then He is completely committed to meet me in the fulfillment of that promise. The only point in which that Promise can fail is in my own weakness. The responsibility for the failure of this Promise will be mine alone, because God’s commitment to me has never faltered. And so I must also believe that whatever trial, pain, or conflict I face due to a promise I have made before Him will be overcome by the power of His Promise to me.
My love is a Promise proclaimed in His presence. I will not allow it to fail due to my weakness.
In 1 Corinthians 13 we are told many things about the love that endures: “love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, love does not brag, and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…” (Italics mine).
Every aspect of love that is named in this list is a worthy trait, but the last two mentioned go hand in hand and seem to me to be the foundation of the whole concept of love.
Love endures, and it never fails.
If we in our human weakness fail in any aspect of keeping our love pure, for instance by being jealous, we can trust that true love has been imbued with the strength of God who created it. Even though we may have momentarily failed in keeping that love pure, God’s commitment to it has never failed, and He overrides our foolishness with the essence of His love. In doing this He allows me to keep my promise, because at that point, when I take on His commitment to my promise it becomes His promise too. With a commitment to the Promise like God gives to me, how can I be silent with the joy and gratitude it inspires in me? His commitment to the Promise is so great that when we give our life to Him He holds it in safe keeping and gives His only Son as a sacrifice that should have been us. A life was demanded as payment to fulfill His promise, and His Promise was to give us life. So He kept His promise by providing a sacrifice of His own.
His love never fails.
He keeps His Promises. So also must I keep mine.
And so, as I go on in this world, with every thing that is thrown at me, with every thrust of every sword this world impales me on to force my failure, I will know that though I die the Promise lives on, for it is no longer just mine, but His as well.
He is Love.
Love Never Fails.
The Promise lives on.
©Dan Bode 2002