I heard so many youth prayed to God about something they want. They want it so bad that they even made a promise that if God answered their prayers, they will do whatever He asks of them. But when God gave what they wanted, they broke their promises. They never do what God asks of them. Sounds familiar? Many of us often do that. In this blog, we will see that God takes our vows and promises seriously.
First let us understand how serious God is with His promises.

In Gen 15:8-17, we can see how people get into a binding promise. They sacrifice animals by cutting it into halves. The bodies of dead animals will be scattered on the ground. It is a bloody and a gruesome ritual. Then the parties would walk between the pieces of the sacrifices in declaration that if they failed to keep their word, they deserved the same fate as the animals. Though it is a pagan practice, God uses it to assure Abraham that He will keep His promises. Abraham never had the chance to walk between the pieces of the animals because God put him into a deep sleep. However in this story, we get the idea that God is really serious in keeping His promises. On the other hand we have an understanding how people during those times take binding promises seriously.

Now, what would happen if we fail to fulfil our promises to God?
We have two examples of individuals that failed to fulfil their oath to God that can be found in the bible; Samson and the high priest Eli.

Samson
Nazarites were those people who desired to be separated from the world and dedicated themselves to God for a certain time (to some individual their whole lifetime). Samson was a Nazarite. God gave Sam super human abilities as long as he fulfilled his oath as a Nazarite. Yet he violated his oath to God. He did not keep his end of the bargain. As a result, God took away his super human abilities. Unable to keep his promise to God, it caused him his life.

High Priest Eli
God promised to Israel that the family line of Eli will serve God in the temple as priest (1 Sam. 2:28). Yet Eli was unable to keep his family oath to God. As a result, God took back His promise and caused Eli and his sons’ life. They all died on the same day (1 Sam 2:27-36).

God was faithful to His promise to Samson by giving him super human abilities. Yet when Sam was unable to keep his end of the bargain, God took back that promise and had a fatal result. God was faithful to fulfil his promise to Eli’s family line. Yet God took back His promise when Eli and his sons fall short to fulfil their promise to God.

Some youth think that they can manipulate God by making vows in return for their answered prayers. It doesn’t work that way. We may think that God would understand us when we take back our promise to him. After all God is love so why bother? No wonder there are so many youth who desire to have a personal and ministry revival yet they never experienced either. It is simply because they take their promises to God very lightly. “Lord, if you give me this, I promise to attend church every Sunday. Lord if You give me good grades I promise to get involved in the youth ministry. Lord if you give me a boyfriend I promise to help the worship ministry.” After God gave those requests, we fail to fulfil our promise. God does not take that lightly. When we make a vow to him He really takes it seriously. As God told Eli in 1 Sam. 2:30:
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I will give honour to those by whom I am honoured, and those who have no respect for me will be of small value in my eyes.-BBE

The next time you make a promise to God, make sure to fulfil it. If you honor your promise to Him, He will continue to bless you. If you take back your promise to Him He will do the same thing to you…