I Promise

Matthew 5:37 But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one.

I can remember when I was a young child we would make promises and to add extra value on an agreement we would do something creative like a secret handshake or a pinky promise.  We did these things as a symbol of a contract.  As I got older, we began to say things such as I promise or I swear.  We consistently searched for different ways to add weight or value to our agreements.  As an adult, we signed contracts or legal documents to add validity or power to an agreement.  By adding different things to our promises to add value, we water down the simple yet power value of our words. 

Jesus said let your yes be yes and your no be no.  More often than not, we enter into a promises without concern or any expectation for follow through.  We commit to being places we have no intentions on going, we commit to helping people we have no intentions on helping, and we use the excuse I forgot as a clause to get out of our promise.  If God were to say He would do something and when the time came, He didn't show up, but use He forgot as an excuse; many of us would lose our faith.  In the same manner, many have lost their faith in us for the same reason. 

Today is a simple challenge, be mindful of what you commit to because whether with a contract or not, each yes and each no is a promise.