Making Promises to Self

Do you know a person that says they are going to do something and they never do? After awhile, you question their committments with, "yeah right" or "I won't hold my breath."  A friend of mine actually started asking his friend for deposits! He said that if he showed up, GREAT! They would spend the money on their time together as planned. But if he didn't show, he would be reimbursed for his time and effort to meet a "no show."

It gets under our skin when words don't line up with actions. We preach the scripture, "Let your yes be yes and your no be no" (Mat 5:37) and drill the importance of keeping your word. But how often do we teach to keep promises to ourselves?

This is a fairly new revelation for me. I was (and still can be) so focused on keeping my promises to others that I often neglect promises to myself. Those people that said "no" to others, I labeled as SELFISH.  For example, I used to give my father a hard time.  He is great at keeping promises to himself.  If he said, “No” to one of our last-minute invitations, I would get frustrated and see him as neglecting us.  Now I realize how important that quality is to someone with an entrepreneurial mindset (you can't build a business on broken promises to yourself).  For all of us,  it is a quality and skill that is to be respected.

On the flip side, I never stuck to anything I set out to do for myself. I was good at killing myself to meet the expectations of others. If I told myself I was going to work out, have quite time or focus on my writing, I would often "skip it" at the last minute. At worst, I thought I was only perpetuating a character of procrastination (which, I could stop at ANY moment…of course). But little did I realize it goes deeper: I was building up a lie I believed in myself that I didn’t matter enough to keep my word...to myself. The lie of unworthiness and helplessness sets in unconsciously and before you know it, you believe “I can’t” change who I AM and the effort to do so is wasted on someone LIKE me.

God values you so much that He keeps every promise He makes. Why would we treat ourselves worse than God and diminish the beloved one He values so much that He sent His own Son to fulfill the greatest promise of all? Psalms 105:8

All this to say, keeping promises to yourself is just as important as keeping promises to others. If you don’t, you send the message that you don’t matter. Repent from the lie that you don’t matter.  Believe instead that you are the worthy son or daughter of God because He has said so. If you are WORTHY of God’s attention, you are worthy of YOUR OWN.