Psalm 105:42 “For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.”
Do you realize how many promises will be broken today? Thousands and thousands, perhaps even millions. The fact is, couples who made a covenant with each other before God will break that vow today. Governments will make promises today that they cannot keep or do not intend to keep. Even good people like us will make promises that we cannot keep, either because we lack the ability to keep them or we do not even remember the promises we made! But God never makes a promise that He cannot keep, cannot remember, or does not intend to keep.
Psalm 105 reminds us to seek the Lord because He is completely trustworthy. No one has a “track record” longer than God’s! But if God always keeps His promises, why does it seem sometimes that God doesn’t keep His promises? It seems this way because God keeps His promises in His own way and in His own time, rather than in our limited way and time.I say that carefully because that truth has almost become a cliché to account for a life that is random and chaotic. I mean that God always keeps His promises in His way and in His time–those are good things. God is never “a day late and a dollar short.”
God’s timing may be ahead of my own (that has happened to me recently). The point is not if God’s timing is ahead or behind my timing; the point is, God will keep his promise, and He will keep it in His way (which is better than mine) and in His time (which is also better than mine).
Take the example in this psalm of God’s promise to Abraham that he would be father to a great nation. How did God’s keeping His promise play out over time? God “called for a famine upon the land” (verse 16); “sent a man before them . . . who was sold for a servant” (verse 17); “turned their heart [the Egyptians] to hate his people” (verse 25); and “sent darkness . . . turned their waters into blood . . . frogs . . . flies and lice . . . hail . . . locusts . . . smote also all the firstborn in their land” (verses 28-36). Do you think a Jewish mother wondered if God would keep His promise? Would it have been easy to believe God’s promise when Pharaoh was killing all the baby boys?
God always keeps His promises! When God sent a famine, He was keeping His promise. When Joseph was sold as a slave, God was keeping His promise. When God sent the ten plagues, He was keeping His promise. God did keep His promise.
I have not always kept my promises. I have forgotten some, and others I just didn’t have the ability to keep. But God is perfect, and He always keeps His promises. If God kept His promise to Abraham, He will keep His promise to me. God’s way and God’s timing are always best, and that should give me comfort, confidence, and a reason to praise God today.
Prayer Requests:
1. Service tonight in Nokomis, FL
2. Service tomorrow in Goodyear, AZ
3. Florida Regional Youth Conference in Land O’ Lakes, FL this weekend