How many times have you said to someone ‘I’ll pray about that’ and forgotten to do so. Or you’ve been too busy at the time and think you’ll do it later. Somehow later never comes around.
Perhaps someone at church or a friend or family member has asked you to do something and you promise you will. Then you become so caught up with your own life and work, and problems that it never happens. It is disappointing and frustrating when this happens. I’ve had this happen twice recently with people who have promised faithfully to do things and then they haven’t. It makes me feel I am unimportant, that they don’t really care about me, that they were only mouthing the words but didn’t really mean it. It’s obvious that whatever is happening in their lives takes precedence over what they promised to do for me.
It works the other way around too. When you or I promise to pray for someone, or write a letter or ring them or do some other job for them and we don’t, we are not only letting them down we are letting God down. As God’s people we need to be people of our word. We shouldn’t have to have people having to remind us and badger us into doing what we said we were going to do.
God’s word reminds us that we need to be people of our word. We need to ‘Let your yes be yes and your no, no; so that you may not fall under judgment,’ James 5:12. Our God is a God of His word who keeps His promises. We need to be like that too.
So next time someone rings or sends a message and asks you to pray for them, or do something for them and you say you will, stop right there and then and do so. Even as I was in the middle of writing this I had such a message from someone, so I stopped first and prayed for their healing.
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