“Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” Matthew 5:33-37
In our relationships, we make promises. Reasons we make oaths can be for a repayment and in other times, we make promises to give or impart to others our time, talent, money, and all other resources that we can possibly give out. We make promises with a sure “yes” of fulfilling it, however, as humans, we can not always make our promises true because of our limited capacity, shifting of our minds or have other priorities.
But why do we make promises even if we are unsure? Because we care too much, other times, we love to please people, but more commonly, because of our unstable thinking that led us to become uncertain and bombard our minds too much, hence, we tend to withdraw the promise. And when we do, this results to disappointments and frustration to the person whom we made an oath with, which will lead to conflict or worse, damaged relationships.
We do not want this to happen in our relationships with people in all levels of the society, that is why even Jesus himself in the sermon of the mount shared the danger of making an oath that we cannot fulfill, and so imparted to us that let our answers be certain, if yes, it’s a sure. If we are unsure and doubting, let it be a no. When we do this, we respect others, same goes to God, we revere Him by recognizing that we are limited and that we need His bountiful grace and mercy every day and this shall move is honoring Him, honoring the people around us by honoring our words.
Let us therefore, thrive to keep good relationships by making our words true, to be honest and to be certain.
