Honesty really is the best policy. We tell kids that, we tell everyone else that will listen that. We tell everyone that because it is the truth.
What I want to focus on today is a short conversation my wife and I had with one of our former students a year or so ago. We had him as a student 5 or 6 years ago now, and at the time he was 18 and 19 and still very immature for his age. He would always commit to help, and never did. He always wanted the class to do X, Y and Z, but he would never show up to participate in any of it after telling us for weeks how he would not miss it. Honestly, his word was worthless.
Now he is married, seemingly a bit more mature, and has a "real" job. We were discussing him coming to upcoming event at our church. In response he said - "I will not promise you that I will come. I don't make promises anymore. I mean to keep my promises, but I usually don't so I just do not commit to anything now." HELLO!!!! What a honest statement. It is a sad statement, and one that would concern me if I was his wife, boss, friend, etc, but at least he is being honest now about his reliability. I would also like to think that my wife and I had a part in helping him mature, but I have no idea really.
My point in this is that our word is the bond that both builds and holds relationships together. It is all others have to go on when they first meet us, and all they judge us on after they know us. As a Christian the standard of trustworthiness is not lower because we are forgiven for our failings, but higher because we are the living embodiment of Christ on earth. I say all of this to make this point - even if we want to do something in our heart, if we do not seriously plan to do something we should not commit to it.
Throughout the entire Bible we see God, and Jesus, making promises and then keeping them. God and Jesus always told their followers to be people of truth and faithfulness. Simply put, we are all called to be people of our word, and not to only keep it when it is convenient and useful to ourselves like the world does. We should never compare our trustworthiness to the world's standard and consider ourselves a success if we equal the world in this area.
If we commit to do it, we need to do it. If we are forgetful we need to write down our commitments. If we have a great memory, we still need to write it down where we do not forget it, or over look it, when we make additional commitments. We are all busy, we are all active, we are all involved in a lot of important things, we all have a lot of relationships, to me that means we all have to be more committed to being people of our word not less. We have more commitments, thus we have more responsibilities, and with great responsibility comes higher standards.
In today's world we seem to get that backwards. We use our commitments and responsibilities as covers for our failures to keep our word. We will all fail at keeping our promises 100% of the time, but that does not mean that our failings should be the norm, they should the exception. The Bible tells us that those that are given a lot (I believe this to be it material, spiritual, or physically blessed) that more is expected of them, and we have all been given a lot, so there is more expected of us.
Understand I am not writing you this because I know you have committed to help with something and have not. No, I am writing this with the hope of encouraging you to continue to keep your word, and to continue to make your word valuable to others. Your word, and the word you convey for those you lead when you commit, is the only thing that others have to judge you and the peoples / things you lead by. It is vital that you continue to maintain your word has both valuable and trustworthy. Please encourage all that you teach, direct, minister to, and assist to do the same, especially if they are Christians. Saved or not, people that are trustworthy helps us all.
Be strong, be courageous, be praying, be trustworthy, and be at church on Sunday. Get it, trustworthiness starts with showing up when we commit too.
