6 APRIL

TURBULENCE IN THE AIR: PROMISES

“When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.”  (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5, )

In Judges 11, Jephthah had been rejected by his brothers because he was the son of another woman, a prostitute. When the threats from the Ammonites became tough, the elders called him back to lead them into battle. Knowing and feeling the turbulence of an outcast, with the excitement of his restoration, he made a rash and unnecessary vow to God to offer anything that came out from the doors to meet him as a burnt offering, if God gave him victory. The battle was fought and won but alas it was his daughter and only child who came out of the door to meet him!

Many times, especially in our early Christian lives, many of us have made emotional financial promises on the spur of the moment, sometimes manipulative conditions, and we struggle to fulfil these. Some make promises to God when there is turbulence in the air and others when they are critically ill. Sometimes in desperate times, just like Jephthah, we make vows in the erroneous thought that God needs it to fulfil His promise. Jesus has paid the full price for our salvation; nothing we promise in the midst of turbulence or otherwise can change that. Yes, there may be conditions to some of God’s promises but most of it is a test of our obedience.

However, sometimes it is through the turbulence that we hear what God is saying clearly and this usually brings fulfilment of God’s purpose like with Hannah. God needed a prophet and priest and that commitment from Hannah to give her son back to God, came only after years of childlessness. Whatever the reason, don’t be a fool as the verse above says, keep the vow! Jephthah kept his, Hannah kept hers.

ACTION: Keep any vows you have made and do not make rash vows.

PRAYER: Father God, please give me the purity of heart, grace and provision to fulfil my vows.