All day long, every day at work commitments are made. We each will make tens if not more than that today. We promise to deliver that report on time, we commit to call someone back later in the day, we assure someone else that we will be someplace when they expect us, we write that we will follow up on that email and get back to someone. We make commitments over and over and then others depend on us to stand by our word. When we follow through and meet those commitments then others look at us in a favorable light and are pleased and satisfied. When we don’t, then we let others down and we erode our credibility and standing. Both the positive and the negatives happen all day long, every day. With the volume of work that each of us have it is nearly impossible to be on top of everything at all times. I was in a meeting yesterday with a person that I coach and he was telling me that he works as hard as he can to uphold his integrity and that he feels good about the stands that he makes against hard lines of black and white and he believes that others inside his company would hold him up as someone of high integrity. However, he feels overwhelmed at times and can’t meet the small commitments of follow-up and follow-through and when that happens he feels like he lets everyone down and that his integrity is compromised and can be questioned. He then feels like he needs to scramble and go out of his way to convince others that he will follow-through, etc. I know he is not alone in this feeling as I believe we all feel this way at one time or another. You can also see it when others are in this mode as when it comes time to make a commitment they will go overboard and you hear them say things like, “I swear I will get to this…it’s at the top of the list…I promise you, I really will”. Whenever I hear these words coming from others or myself, I know that there are backs that are against the wall and feelings of high stress and pressure are present. Jesus gives us interesting direction at how we are to make commitments to others. Suffice it to say that any commitment we make, we are to keep so we need to be careful on what we commit because we will be expected to follow-through and deliver. But, He goes beyond that and gives us direction on the actual words we should use. In Matthew 5:36-37, He says: “Don’t even swear, ‘By my head!’, for you can’t turn one hair white or black. Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t. Your word is enough. To strengthen your promise with a vow shows that something is wrong.” What a clear message that Jesus gives us. He tells us that our word is already strong and that it is enough to say, “Yes, I will” or “No, I won’t”. And anything else we add on to those phrases weakens instead of strengthens our commitments and credibility. Today, as we enter into any one of the multiple commitments that will be asked of us, let’s listen to ourselves and be cognizant of the words we use to make those commitments and know the tremendous power and responsibility of just the three simple words, “Yes, I will!”

Reference: Matthew 5:36-37 (New Living Testament)