I PROMISE.
These two words stop us, cause us to pause, to consider the person making the promise.
These two words immediately bring us certainty or apprehension. 
Will you really do what you promise?
Really?
Do you really promise?
Do you promise to keep your promise?
Will you really do what you say you will do?
I PROMISE!!!
Has anyone ever not?
Has anyone ever promised us something and then failed to keep that promise?    Truly, circumstances change, life happens, and plans change, BUT do those reasons ever constitute a valid reason for our broken promises?    If someone promises and then fails, and when questioned, the person offers a valid reason for not keeping the promise, does the REASON TAKE AWAY THE STING OF THE BROKEN PROMISE?
I DON’T THINK SO, & I EXPECT THAT YOU WOULD AGREE.
Promises should be kept.  Everyone would agree.

Let’s consider some promises made & promises that God reveals to us in His timing.
****We buy something new, and the store promises to stand behind their warranty.    We will never know UNTIL the product breaks and we suddenly need to know. We wonder if the product warranty promise will be altered OR if it will be honored when we return the broken product to the store. We hope & trust that they do…..Keep their promise.

****We enter a relationship with someone, grow close, share intimacies, promising to keep their secrets.    We know what Benjamin Franklin penned about secrets spoken; he wrote about the demise of one of the two involved in the spoken secret.    Best friends keep our secrets, and that’s why we are careful in who we chose to BE Our Best Friend.    Trusting in a promise-keeper is such a precious commodity in today’s world.  Will our closest friends keep their promises to hold close our secrets whispered? We hope & trust that they do…..Keep their promise.

****We become enamored with someone, begin dating, and even date long—months and years.  Then those three words are spoken—I Love You, and we begin to wonder is he the “one” we could love forever.    Then the engagement occurs, and suddenly, we find ourselves standing in front of a minister who speaks these words——-“Do you promise to love, honor, and cherish until death do you part?”     “I Do.   I Do Promise to always love you, to never stop loving you.” We reply those words of promise to the one facing us, to the one holding onto our hands in front of God and witnesses. We hope & trust the ones we chose to love do………Keep their promise.

****I remember a promise I made one day, several years ago (1998 to be exact).   It was spoken during a prayer, a promise offered when I knew that God had my “this,” and I knew deep in my soul that God would sustain me whether He gave me a child or not. “God, if You see fit to give  me a child to love, God I promise to not complain when you take that child far away from me.  Yes, God, I promise.”    God brings to my mind often that promise as I cherish the moments when Sydney and I talk screen-to-scree, 5,000+ miles apart, with a sea separating us. I hope that I am able to keep my promise to not complain to God, that I do what I said I would do…….that I can Keep My promise.

When I prayed in 1998, I thought I was ONLY praying for one child.  After a talk with Marieke, I realized that in 1998, I was praying with God’s timing—–not for that one year, or for a decade of years, or for even a century, but for eternity.   Our conversation about what Marieke may or may not do when she graduates next year floored me; immediately I thought of my prayer, of the chair I sat upon, in the room where I was sitting when I prayed 22 years ago.   WOW!!!!   I am still so amazed by God’s blessing and gift of my daughter Sydney and of my gift of another daughter to love, of Marieke.

****”We will see one another, hug and talk face-to-face…….every year.  It’s a promise.”   Marieke and I made that promise, and then the horrible Coronavirus stripped away our ability to keep our promise as the borders locked down  and as the virus raged, leaving us talking through a screen for now more than a year. We hope & trust that the vaccinations will open the borders……..soon, and that we will be able to Keep our promise.

I PROMISE.    We try so hard to keep our promises, and we try (best as we can) to hold others to their promises made, and nothing hurts worse than when a promise made is not a promise kept.  We even make promises to ourselves……promises that we don’t always keep, and then we rationalize why we did not (keep our promise).

****Just this past week, I invited a good friend to come sit beside me at church, and he promised me—-“I tell you what, if I ever decide to go to a church, it will be with you, and only you,” to which I replied, “I will hold you to that promise.” I hope he Keeps that promise.

I PROMISE.
Two words bring us certainty OR apprehension. 
Will the person really DO what he promises to DO? Will we DO what we promise to Do? OR, ARE THE WORDS “I PROMISE” JUST SOMETHING WE SAY TO OURSELVES, TO ONE ANOTHER, AND TO GOD?

We are told in the Bible that vows made to God are serious and should not be broken.    We should take serious when we make a promise to God.   I am certainly trying my best to keep my promise made twenty-two years ago. When others ask me how I survive with Sydney so far away, I try to say, “I am trusting God.”    Each day that passes, God gives me strength to keep my vow I made to Him, and I am confident that God will sustain me fully. How do I know? It is because we serve an amazing God who gives us the promise of His salvation, and once we accept Him and become His Children……He sustains us. GOD——-the ONLY faithful Promise-Keeper!!!

The Bible is so CLEAR.  We only need to open it, to read Scripture, to be reminded how God has always kept His promises.
“So the LORD gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it.
And the LORD gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them;  the LORD gave all their enemies into their hand.
Not one of the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel failed;  all came to pass”   (Joshua 21: 43-45).
Jesus spoke another promise, after His crucifixion, after his death and burial, after He arose back to new life, and before Jesus left the earth to ascend back to heaven.
“And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying,  “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age [ PROMISE]”    (Matthew 28:  18-20).

• GOD HAS KEPT HIS PROMISES.
• We only need to read historical documents—-Israel’s historical record proves it so.
• GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES.
• We only need to look back upon our own lives and the many ways God has been with us, beside us, never leaving us once we were His. 
• GOD WILL ALWAYS KEEP HIS PROMISES.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea.
And I saw the Holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying,   “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them,
And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will no longer be any death;  there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”   And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
Then He said to me,  ” It is done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.  I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost [eternal life with God forever]” (Revelation 21: 1-6).
GOD IS THE ONLY PROMISE-KEEPER. We only need to BELIEVE GOD IS WHO HE SAYS HE IS……and trust HIM.
Let us forever be reminded; Let us never forget—–GOD IS THE KEEPER OF HIS PROMISES!!!   HE HAS & HE DOES & HE WILL ALWAYS KEEP HIS PROMISES!!!