A Brilliant Idea to make Your Promises more Honourable

I raised my kids without making promises to them because I didn’t trust myself to honour them. I knew that there would be times when I would not follow through, for one reason or another, on that promise. The lack of follow through would then be what I was known for rather than all of my other good characteristics.

This idea was not wise because I did not even honour the promises I made to myself. My excuse was that I didn’t know if I would be able to follow through but it was more because I didn’t want to be “expected” to honour them. I learned through this that no one has to say, “I promise,” for people to take it as a promise. When you tell someone you will do something for them, they take that as a promise and expect you to honour it. By the way, so does the Lord, as you will discover with Jephthah and his daughter.

Our Biblical 📖 Ground Work      Judges 11:1-12:7

Jephthah was a great warrior who was driven out by his family because he was a product of his father Gilead’s sexual sin. He hung out with lawless men and went about raiding. His great warrior status was remembered by the Israelite elders when the Ammonites wanted to go to war over the land.

They made Jephthah their commander and went to war with the Ammonites. They were successful because the Lord gave them over to them. For Jephthah this victory was going to cost. And He will pay the price out of honour to the Lord. For his daughter though the cost was dearer but she too would honour the Lord by paying the price.

Jephthah made a vow to the Lord that if He would give the Ammonites into his hands, and Jephthah comes back in peace, whatever comes out of his house first, he would give to the Lord as a burnt sacrifice (a tribute to honour God for what He has done). This a vow that would cost him his daughter and both of them would honour it with tremendous hurt. One because he doubted and the other because she wanted to honour it.

Our Biblical 📖 Life Lesson

You can learn how to honour your promises by learning how to make better promises.

The result of me never making promises to people is that I never learned how to take responsibility for following through on my promises. Jephthah’s daughter obviously learned how to do that from her parents. Honour is a great thing to have but honour hurts sometimes. We are avoiding the hurt by never making any promises or we can learn how to make promises that lead us into God vision for us.

Jephthah’s daughter fully understands your dilemma. She was put in an impossible situation by someone else’s vow. Then she answered that vow with a vow of her own. She promised she would return after two months of morning her virginity with her friends. She could have stayed in the mountains, never to be seen again, but she came back to honour God and her father. But mostly she honoured herself and is remembered still today.

Her father did not have to make that vow. As Jephthah was on his way to war the Spirit of the Lord came upon Him and He knew it. You cannot have something like that happen and not feel it. BUT he is still human and doubted his ability to take on the Ammonites. He bargained with the Lord because of his doubt and lost.

If you want a promise that you can honour, make if from a positive mindset, not a negative one. The difference between Jephthah and his daughter was the mindset. He vowed because he didn’t believe and she vowed because she was grateful to the Lord. Which one of them, do you think is easier to follow through with? If you learn how to make your promises from a positive state of mind, your follow through will cause you to be honoured by those around you. 

Join us in The Bible Gals as we continue this discussion with The 3 Ways to Follow through on Every Promise Study and 🎥 LIVE.