WRITTEN BY TIM LABRECHE
“I know I said I would do it, but…”
Have you heard these words from someone who promised something? Have you said it to your spouse? Your children? Your friends? Your employer?
How many times have you been promised something, and it not come to fruition? Did your spouse promise ‘til death do us part and walk away? Did you neighbor promise to return your favorite rake right after they borrowed it? It’s been a year and it’s still sitting in their shed. People make promises to us, but if we put our trust in the words of other people, we will find ourselves often discouraged.
What about you? Have you promised something to somebody and not followed through? Have you told your wife that you would stop buying tools only for her to find a new one in the backseat of your truck? Have you promised your little girl that you would take her to the Disney Princesses on Ice show only to forget to get tickets before they sold out? I bet in those and other similar situations those people close to you felt betrayed by you.
Inevitably, we will either break a promise made or have a promise made to us broken. I want to encourage you to follow the example given in scripture. Let your ‘yes’ be yes and you ‘no’ be no. (Paraphrase from Matthew 5:37)
This year we are looking at the Promises of God, not of man. Even though the above examples show how we can break our promises to those we love. They stand in contrast to how our loving Savior keeps his promises to us. Let’s start our dive into God’s promises by looking at a central, over-arching promise of God.
Deuteronomy 31:6 reads, “Be strong and courageous; don’t be terrified or afraid of them. For the Lord your God is the one who will go with you; he will not leave you or abandon you.” Hebrews 13:5 along the same line also says, “Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.”
As I’ve been preparing to write this, I’ve been asking God to show me what it is I need to share about this. I have so many examples in my own life of God going with me where I tread and knowing he will never leave me. But I wasn’t at peace with that. This morning He showed me what it is I’m supposed to share. There was a godly woman that loved Jesus and trusted him with everything. I didn’t know her personally, but I followed her journey. This young wife and mother had some type of cancer. Her journey was an up-and-down path. Good days, weeks and months followed by bad days, weeks, and months. Whether it was a good day or a bad day, she ALWAYS placed her hope, her health and her family in God’s hands because of His promise to never leave her. This brave woman did end up walking into the eternal home that our Father prepared for her in the spring of 2021, but I read something on her blog that showcases God’s promise in her life. She wrote:
“We have obeyed everything God has asked us to do, with His help, and now He is asking us to trust Him as everything is now completely in His hands. What a desperately freeing place to be… But what has happened in (husband’s) heart, and my heart in the last 6 years has been nothing short of a miracle. We have watched and felt fear shed off of us. I know Jesus will be there when I die. I know He will sustain the hearts of my family and friends. He will accompany me in the final sufferings before I go home. He is good. He is alive. He is in control. He is gracious and compassionate. He is strength. He is courage. He is the I AM.”
I can’t read that without tearing up. In the midst of what was ahead of her, she believed and held on to the truth that His promises to never leave her or abandon her would ALWAYS be followed through on. God will never say “I know I said I would do it, but…”
Do you trust God’s promise that he will never leave us? What does it look like for you to be strong and courageous when trials come?
You may not be facing a life-or-death issue as above, but God cares about even the smallest of things you’re facing. What small issues do you need to let go of and let God handle them?
Is there anything that you think is too big for God to handle? How do I say this gently? You’re wrong. The same God that created the stars, sun, earth and everything else is capable to handle your speedbumps, walls and anchors. Pray to God and tell him that you can’t handle them, but you believe He can.
