Exploring promises as a tool of growth
Part 3: Some pitfalls to avoid!
One answer to this problem is to not make promises! If you don’t make any promises, you can’t feel guilty when you break them! But this, of course, is to surrender the spiritual life altogether. So, painful as it is, it is still better to make promises and face the reality of failure and the need to confess, repent and try again, than not even to try. Another false answer is to make promises that are deliberately vague and open, such that you can never accuse yourself of ever actually breaking them, or at such a low threshold that even you can keep them. A further mistake is to make one promise and then think that if you keep just that one then you are alright with God – even though you offend him in lots of other ways. Finally, we must beware that we don’t think that our rightness with God depends on keeping our promises – as though if we could find a promise that we can keep then that must mean that we are a good person and can regard ourselves as righteous. This is the common mistake of people who are genuinely trying to live in a way that honours God, but who fall into self-righteousness. Our relationship with God always depends on his mercy and grace.
Spiritual Devotion 