Is God a Promise Keeper?

Questions. Scenarios. Probabilities.  Sounds like my daughter’s math problems. Except these questions, scenarios, and probabilities are what is swirling around in my head like Tropical Storm Erika swirling out in the Atlantic.

With School back in session, I dreamed of routines returned, stability reestablished and my mind miraculously resuming a more focused mode of operation.  Not the case.  My out of control mind builds like a tropical depression into a tropical storm into a category 1 hurricane.  Like a storm seeking landfall, my mind wants to gravitate towards anything solid that can break up, slow down and bring to a halt the winds of my mind.

I want concrete solid answers, a plan, and minimal potential results.  A cone of projected outcome would be nice, don’t you think?  We could plug in our coordinates, questions, current situation and the Doppler radar of life would project a cone of uncertainty.  There is no cone of uncertainty for our lives as life has too many variables leaving our minds to be sucked up into a vortex of the unknown.  The biggest variable is…God.

With God, a complete different set of questions, scenarios and probabilities arise.  Is He really a good God?  Will He make good on His promises?  Work good out of the impossible?

If we somehow reign in our maelstrom mind, surrender our anxious thoughts, will God really bring peace of mind and stand guard over our hearts?  Does God keep His promises?

I could see a storm approaching this morning while walking with my dog Penny at City Park.  The sky lit up in the distance with lightning, dark clouds and thunder rumbling.  I could see the rain on the other side of the Ringling Bridge.  We rounded the corner and I was stunned to see an enormous rainbow slipping out of the clouds on either end.

Rainbows.  A sign from God that He keeps His promises.

God’s promises are the land mass our storms need to land on to break up our fears, slow down our thoughts and put a halt to our doubts.  God’s promises are true.  It is our lack of belief and our lack of focus on His promises that keep our storms out to sea.  In the sea of a divided mind our thoughts are left to spin out of control taking a tropical depression to a category 5 hurricane.

Do you ever have a mind spinning out of control, thoughts keeping you from being productive, moving forward, or robbing you of peace?

What if we sought out a promise of God for our current storm, prayed it, memorized it, redirected our thoughts to it and hung on expectantly in trust that God will keep His promises in our lives?  What if we allowed Him to be God in our storm and allowed Him to work out His promise the way He deemed best?

God moves from a variable to a constant. (Now it is sounding like a science fair project!)

As God becomes that constant, our thoughts move away from the storm and on to His promises.  Then in turning a corner, our gaze may be stunned to see the beauty of rainbow…..even a midst the storm.

“Do not abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward.  For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised.”  Hebrews 10:35, NRSV.