Making Empty Threats And Promises
It is amazing how many times that we make promises that ultimately, we do not intend to fulfil or we make threats that we don’t intend to fulfil. I have found that the people that are often guilty of this are parents with respect to children. You find that perhaps a child is misbehaving and the father will say to that child that, “Stop doing what you’re doing, I will buy you an ice cream.” The child stops misbehaving. And when the child then later on says to the dad, “Dad, my ice cream.” The father goes, “Eh, I don’t have money.” And then just moves away. Or sometimes it’s a mother who’s trying to get a child to have a bath and the child is deliberately keeping away from the bath tab and finally the mother says, “If you don’t bath, no supper.” Well, by the time it is supper time, who do you see at the table? The child who has not bathed. And the mother then says, “You, next time.” And that’s it. The children in the process begin to think that words don’t matter, promises don’t matter. The words produced in threats are simply empty words. And that’s wrong because words matter, promises matter, threats matter.
Take Your Words Seriously
The Bible in Proverbs 6:1-5 puts it this way, “My son if you are snared in the words of your mouth, caught in the words of your mouth, then do this my son, and save yourself, for you have come into the hand of your neighbour: go hasten, and plead urgently with your neighbour. Give your eyes no sleep and your eyelids no slumber; save yourself like a gazelle from the hand of your hunter.” What is the Bible telling us here? What it is saying is that when you have made a promise to your neighbour, well in this case even to your child, take your promise seriously. And when you discover that you are unable to fulfil your promise, don’t wait until your neighbour comes to inquire about it.
When you discover that you are unable to fulfil your promise, don’t wait until your neighbour comes to inquire about it.
Rush to your neighbour and immediately begin to plead because you are unable to fulfil the promise that you made. And what that does is it shows your neighbour how serious you are with your words. You made a promise, circumstances make it difficult for you to fulfil your promise, you rush there in order to plead that perhaps your promise might be moved on to another time and hopefully your neighbour will understand. It is the way in which godly individuals are supposed to go rather than simply take advantage of the fact that you are a father and consequently you just say to your child, “I don’t have money.” That’s wrong, words have meaning.
God’s Fulfilled Promise To Us
In fact, that’s what true godliness is all about. The God of heaven made a promise to us in his own covenant to save us from sin. It was going to cost his own dear son. And what did he do? Did he back out when his son was in Gethsemane pleading with him that the cup of suffering should be taken away from him? No, he didn’t he made a promise, he was going to make good that promise and consequently his own son finally paid dearly by his death on the cross. It is because our God is a faithful God. He will not deny himself.
Did God back out when his son was in Gethsemane pleading with him that the cup of suffering should be taken away? No, he made a promise.
As Christians We Must Reflect Godliness
Well those of us who are Christians, should be exactly the same in reflecting our godliness. We must therefore never make promises in a hurry, never. If your back is against the wall and you need to borrow money and consequently you make a promise that you will pay back by a certain day, make sure you do it. And that is the reason why for those of us who are Christians, we must never make a promise or a threat in the emotions of the moment. We must never say to a child, “If you don’t do this, we will not provide this for you.” Just because we are angry. We must never do so because if we do, we must ourselves pay for it in the end.
Keep Your Word In Your Home
Especially because the home is a training ground; a training ground for hard work, a training ground for love and a training ground for faithfulness. By our example as parents, we must show our children that words matter. If we make a promise, let’s make sure we carry it out. If we make a threat, let’s make sure we carry it out so the children learn that words truly matter.
If we make a promise or a threat, let’s make sure we carry it out so the children learn that words truly matter.
And you’ll find that when they go into adulthood, when they go into the working life, when they go into marriage, they will take their promises to one another seriously. They will be real citizens in God’s world and to God’s glory because we the parents gave a good example to them. And so, as the Bible says, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” Take your words seriously.