“God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true.”

I was meeting this last week with an entrepreneur who had accepted a buyout of his company, moved his family from NYC to LA, only to find out that the promises that were made to him and the team, never quite came to fruition.  As he spoke about his learning from the experience, without bitterness or any regrets, he told me he had learned valuable lessons about promises.  His realization has been that a promise is not really a promise until it is fulfilled.  We receive promises, or we make promises, only to think they are firm in the words made, but there is nothing real about the promise until the fulfillment and more importantly, he said he learned that it is that path between the words and actions that we all walk on.  When the path ends as we expect and desire, then it’s all good.  When it doesn’t we can look back and see where the paths diverged and take that experience with us next time.  Does this make us less trusting?  It doesn’t have to, it just should make us more aware and more active in the process to ensure we always know where we are in that process and how things are really going.  And, the same should be said when we make promises as we have others who are expecting the path to end with our word being good.

If we are to bring glory to God in our jobs, we must be the keepers of promises.  Since our God never goes back on His promises, if we are to fully represent all that He can be to others, we have to keep our promises like He has done, is doing, and will do for us.  That path to promise fulfillment is not always easy, but if we make a promise, we have to go the full way and not let up until the promise is made good.  You see, as I once read, “commitment is what transforms a promise into reality”.  Yes, that is what we have received, an unconditional commitment to our eternal salvation and we must pass that same spirit of commitment to other people. This also is a good reminder for us that if we are at all doubtful we can fulfill a promise, just don’t make one.

Reference:  Psalm 18:30 (New Living Translation)