This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

(upbeat music) Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're going to be looking
today at Proverbs chapter 25. And the verse I'd like to focus on is Proverbs 25
verse 14.

It's a verse about promises. Proverbs 25, 14 says, "A person who doesn't give a
promised gift is like clouds and wind that don't bring rain. " Promises are
important.

And promises, you've probably noticed this, they are easily made, but every one
of us has discovered they can sometimes be difficult to keep. This proverb
reminds us that every time a promise is not kept, an opportunity is lost and
someone is disappointed. Maybe no one is more disappointed than we are with
ourselves when a promise that we've made goes unfulfilled, but someone is
disappointed.

It's fairly obvious that we live in a day where we need to work on promises on
both ends. On the front end, we need to be more careful about the promises that
we make. Most of us hate to have to say no.

We want everybody to like us. And so we find ourselves making promises that we
really can't keep. Even parents do that with children sometimes.

Oh, we'd like to keep them, but there's just not enough time, there's not enough
ability to do everything that we're promising. So we have to be careful on the
front end. But we also have to be careful of our promises on the back end.

The back end of the promise is even more important to work on. We need to keep
our promises even when it hurts. Nothing will make me more careful with my
promises than the determination that I really am going to keep those promises.

In a world where promises mean nothing and legally binding agreements mean
everything, we as believers in Jesus Christ need to be different. Our yes needs
to be yes, our no needs to be no. I'm not talking about the unavoidable in life.

I'm not talking about those times when an accident out on the freeway causes a
two hour delay and you can't make your promised appointment. This instead is
about an invitation by a friend to take you out to a great quiet restaurant. And
yet that conflicts with a trip that you promised your six year old to the loud
and noisy pizza place.

What are you going to do? Well, we've all let our selfishness cause us to slip up
in that area of keeping promises. But the truth is, I have to decide what I'm
going to do today.

What you can do now is say, God, by your grace, give me the wisdom to make
promises I can keep. And God, by your grace, give me the strength to keep the
promises that I make. There may be a promise in your life right now that God's
challenging you.

Yep, I need to keep that one. There may be a promise that was broken to you
that's caused disappointment. You need to give that to God right now and
recognize that God always keeps his promises.

I'm not going to live with that disappointment. I'm going to depend on the promises of
God. There may be a habit in your life of making promises that you don't keep.

There may be a habit in your life of not thinking through promises. This verse
challenges us to think through the promises that we make and to reflect the
character, the attitude of God, because he always keeps his promises to us. So
let's pray together that prayer that I voiced earlier.

Father, we do pray that by your grace, you would give us the wisdom to make
promises that we can keep. Just help us to pause for that moment, to think
through, to look through, is this something that I can do? Give us the wisdom to
make promises that we can keep and God, give us the strength to keep the
promises that we make.

Jesus, you said, let your yes be yes, let your no be no. We know from your
teaching that it's important that we be people of our word. So help us to be
people that are trustworthy.

God, help us to be people who take your promises seriously and who take our
promises seriously. We pray this in your name, amen.