October 13. Who Let The Promises Out?

As leaders, our words are important. They teach and inform, but they also can be formed to create an oath that strengths. A strong team knows the power of communication. It is tough to be strong if you do not have a good communication channel. When we break our word, that channel becomes broken.

Breaking your promise might be like breaking a pane of glass. Trying to pick up the shards of glass and to reassemble them is almost impossible. For some team members, a broken promise can do the same thing. What I find particularly interesting is that an individual makes a promise from their own conscious commitment.

A promise made under duress is not a promise but coercion. Promises have different psychological powers that many people do not understand. Your promise is your oath, delivered by you, not under duress and it has uncommon power.

Use that power wisely by being quick to listen and slow to speak. Where has your team communication been broken by a broken oath? Maybe it is time to lead by repairing the channel of communication. One of the ways to start in the repairing process is to make some promises to yourself as the leader.

Think about your words from last week. How many times have you actually verbally used the words I promise? We can tend to avoid making promises because we know that they hurt others when we break them. It might be obvious that leaders do not make promises that they are not willing to pay the costs to keep.

We must be accountable as the leader to pay those costs. What is the first thing that you can do in the next seven days?

In our faith, your promise is a powerful tool in your arsenal to combat evil in this world. Your promise can show your commitment and your love to others. The promises of our heart are delivered by the strongest muscle that we have. That muscle is our tongue.

This muscle can use its power to harm or to heal. We read, “But now you have shrugged off your oath and defiled my name by taking back the men and women you had freed, forcing them to be slaves once again.” Jeremiah 34:16 NLT.

I will bet as you read this, that you can think of times where people have given you a promise and failed to deliver on it. That hurts. They broke their word. I will bet that you might still have some feelings about a situation like that from your past.

The fact is that others get that same feeling if we break our promises as well. Think about your current relationships, do you have any promises that you are close to breaking right now? Recall the importance of your oath and how powerful it is. If you want it to have the same power in the future, you must take care of it now.

If we want to build our relationships in our faith, our promise can be the first step to doing just that. Do you have an area to be accountable for this week? If so, what is promise worthy for you this week?

Let us pray, Heavenly Father, there is no more powerful word than yours. Guide us so that our words and oaths might become powerful in your eyes. May we honor you by honoring the oaths that we choose to make.

Help us to build our relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ by the promises of our lips. Help us to take our promises seriously. May our promises of today warm our hearts with you tomorrow. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen,