an invisible sign you’ll see hanging around the neck of every person you’ll ever encounter is the sign, no u-turn. here’s what it means: keep your promises.
you tell people you’re going to do such and such, and they really want to believe you. she said this, so that’s the direction she’s going. but before you know it you have turned the wheel and squealed the tire and you’re going in an opposite direction from the commitment that you made to those people around you.
if you look at this encounter between JESUS and the woman in luke 7.36-50 you will find a remarkable promise being made. in verse 48 (nlt) JESUS says to the woman, your sins are forgiven, and JESUS keeps all HIS promises.
have you ever had someone break a promise to you? they told you they were going to do something that was very important, and they didn’t do it. did that make you feel honored and respected, or did it make you feel discounted and disrespected?
i heard a story of an 18 year old ministry student, who’s a really sharp guy. very aggressive. wants to be a pastor. one of his goals is to interview the leading pastors in america, but some of these guys are quite popular and their schedules are full and it’s tough to get an appointment with them. but this young guy is trying. he called a guy out of state. this guy didn’t know him. he’s 18 years old, a college student, but this pastor in the mid west at a large church not only gave him an appointment but it was a lunch appointment. this kid was thrilled.
it just so happened that this appointment was set the week after the 9/11 attack happened. on the morning of the appointment, he got up way before 6 a.m. to make the long drive across a couple of states to get to the church in time for lunch. after he’d already gotten on the road, the pastor’s assistant called to his home. the young man’s father answered. the assistant said, “the pastor was wondering if there was any way he could reschedule with your son.” the father said, “my son is already on the road, and he’ll be there in a few hours. he’ll understand if you just explain it to him when he gets there.” about 15 minutes later, the pastor himself called. he said, “i understand that your son’s already on the road. i just want you to know that i’ve canceled all my other commitments. i gave my word to your son. i’m going to be meeting him for lunch.”
that 18-year-old did meet the pastor. they had a two-hour lunch interview. afterward, the young man drove the pastor back to his church and dropped him off. a staff person was standing by. he walked over to the young guy and said, “i don’t know who you are, but i just wanted you to know that our pastor today had been asked to be on a nationally broadcast radio program that was going to go to every state. he was asked to talk for two hours about the crisis and the spiritual dilemma in our nation right now. but he canceled that because he made a promise to you.”
the young guy said, “i learned more about leadership and integrity in that moment than i did from all the things we talked about at lunch.”
just a thought from the front porch…
No comments:
Post a Comment