Part 1: Promises Made, Promises Kept
We live in a world where promises are often made and not necessarily kept. I know I have made promises and not kept them. The opposite is also true. I have been made promises that were not kept.
I think this is due to our human frailties and fickle mindedness. While the Bible instructs us to let our yes be yes and our no be no (Matthew 5:37), we can struggle to do this for any number of reasons.
While we wrestle with our humanity, I am so thankful for our Heavenly Father who is anything but frail and fickle. I am thankful that He is constant, consistent, and committed to His word and us. And I don’t just mean what is written in the Bible, which we know is full of promises for His children.
I also mean the words and promises He speaks to each of us individually and prophetically. His words and promises can come to us directly in our prayer time with Him, or through trusted prophetic voices He has chosen to speak through, for example.
Either way, He is not a man that He should lie or change His mind. Numbers 23:19 NLT says this:
“God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?”
Numbers 23:19 NLT
He makes us promises, and He keeps those promises. Promises made are promises kept! He does this out of His abundant love for us – to build our faith, to heal our hearts, to give us hope, comfort, purpose, direction, etc.
Testimony Time – A Promise Made and Kept
When I was a little girl, there was nothing I wanted more than a dollhouse. I would pour over dollhouse and miniature magazines like it was my job. I begged my dad repeatedly to get me one and build it with me. For whatever reason, it never happened, so it became an unfulfilled girlhood desire.
My amazing husband fulfilled this desire early in our marriage. While I was pregnant with our first son, he bought me a dollhouse. Unfortunately, I chose to sell it a few years later in a garage sale believing I would never have time to do what I wanted with it. Our boys were young, I was working full time, commuting downtown, etc. In retrospect, I see how I lacked vision and truth. At the root of it, I struggled to receive my husband’s incredibly kind gesture.
Brokenness will do that. It will cause us to sabotage ourselves and the kind gestures others. It causes us to perpetuate and project the rejection we’ve experienced, particularly during our early childhood years.
While my husband’s gesture brought some level of healing to my heart, I had to heal on a deeper level. My heart still heart from what I perceived to be my dad’s rejection of me and my desire for a dollhouse. I had to forgive him and myself. In that process, the Lord – my Abba Father – promised that He would bring me a dollhouse one day when Tom and I were out and about. That was about two years ago.
Well, He made me that promise, and He kept His promise! To my utter delight – and surely His as well – He brought me a dollhouse recently when Tom and I were out and about. It was just as He said it would be! Here’s a picture:
Encouragement
Our Father makes promises to all of those He calls His children. He delights in us (Zephaniah 3:17) when we delight in Him, and as a good, doting Father, He longs to give us the desires of our hearts (Psalm 37:4). He is a Big God, yet He is a loving Father who wants to connect with us on a deeply personal and individual level.
If you don’t know God as Father, or struggle to see Him as Father, I hope you are encouraged to seek Him in this way for yourself. He promises (!) we will find Him when we seek Him with our whole hearts (Jeremiah 29:13). He is waiting for you to take just one step toward Him, and I know that He loves you so very much!
If you’re waiting on a promise to be fulfilled by our Father, take heart! He will come through in His perfect timing. He withholds no good thing from His children (Psalm 84:11), even when He makes us wait. Delay is not denial! He will not deny you because He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). His promises are good just as He is good. All His promises are yes and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20)!
I pray you are blessed and encouraged to seek Him today – even right now – and press in to every promise He has for you!
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