Numbers 30

Numbers 30 is about making pledges or taking an oath. Or what we might call today making a promise.

I have heard it said that in the good old days all that someone needed was a handshake to make a deal and a man's word was as good as gold. But we don't live in the good old days anymore and people don't fulfill their promises all the time.

I don't think that people are bad, I think they expect too much of themselves. Many times I will try and squeeze 12 hours of work in to a 9 hour day. Obviously things are going to get left out. It's the same with our social obligations. We promise to do something with the best of intentions, but there is only so many hours in a day.

Former Notre Dame Head Football Coach Lou Holtz once said, "never promise more than you can deliver, but deliver more than you can promise."

Promise less, deliver more. Sounds familiar to me.

God has made us promises. Promises in our Baptism and in the Lord's Supper. God has promises us that sin, death, and the devil have been defeated. God has promised to be with us always to the end of the age.

God has not promised to heal us when we are sick and provide wealth to live on... God's promises are eternal, not temporal. Yet God blesses us.

God delivers more than He promises.