Commitment: What It Was and What It's Become

"If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth." 

~Numbers 30:2

God has and always will take His promises very seriously. He promised Noah that He would never flood the earth again with a worldwide flood, and sealed that oath with what we know as the rainbow. He promised Abraham that he would be the father of great and mighty nation. [Though we know there are actually two lines, the Israelites through Isaac and the Arabs through Ishmael.] "And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing" Genesis 12:2. And we see in Hebrews 6:13, "For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He sware by Himself," Again, God never takes His promises to us lightly.

But not only did He make promises to those in Biblical times, but His promises for love and blessings and hope live on for us today. When God makes a promise, it's for keeps. But what about us...? We see promises being broken every day. Commitments are forgotten, like children's toys that are stuffed away somewhere in a closet. Vows are made but set aside so easily like unwanted food on our plates. In our time, words mean very little. Lawyers have become more necessary in designing contracts to keep the agreement binding, as the good old "handshake" is nothing more than skin touching skin. Who can trust anyone outside of their signature on a contract nowadays?

I remember my Grandpa telling me stories about the farming days when your neighbor would come over to help plow the fields and plant crops and then you'd go help your neighbor do the same with his land. And if your neighbor said he was going to help you out, he stuck to his word. You could trust him to keep to his promise and he would in turn trust you to keep yours to help him out. Neighbors are much different nowadays, aren't they. Our society certainly has come to the thinking that this is a "dog eat dog" and you might have to break a few promises to get to the top. In the "old days", a man's word was his reputation. If he broke it, he become well known as a very untrustworthy guy and you'd stay away from him.

People will of course fail us, but God expects His children to keep our word. We desire to trust our fellow humans to do what they said they would and perhaps we build our expectations up too high, but in exchange for all that trust, we are crushed to find so many individuals fool-heartedly committing to do things, but not actually taking responsibility. What's that? Yes, responsibility. 

If we as Christians see God taking His promises, His commitments so seriously, perhaps we should remember our own and follow through with them. Nobody can force us to commit to something; so it is only by choice that we choose to take on responsibility. Let us then reverse the direction that commitment has become and commit like how it used to be.