Wednesday

Promises - We Can't Always See Them - A Dose of Encouragement







Not very long ago I read of a Canadian school teacher who on his 27th time reading through the Bible decided to take a note of all the promises he found there.  
This took him a year and a half and he came up with a grand total of 

8,810 
PROMISES. 




We are NOT going to look at all those promises!!!!



Although if you are interested in some of them you can have a look at 
Bible Verses for  10 Great Promises of God.

or you can have a look at a reminder of many things God has Promised in Promises


However it got me thinking about this and I wondered how many times have we promised something
  • to others
  • to ourselves
  • to God

You know the things we have said:

Yes, yes, yes I promise!   -  when we are not really interested and just want to get on quickly to something else.

Of course I promise!

I Promise I really do!

I never promised!


Do any of those sound familiar?

Can any of us say we have never broken any of the promises we have made?

We just need to admit that we can't remember all the promises we have made in our lives and we probably don't remember if we made any yesterday.


Perhaps we speak too soon about things, or too quickly, or perhaps we don't take promises too seriously.

Perhaps we want to forget about a promise we made because we don't really want to be held to it.

Surprisingly we can forget that others have promised things too.

So thinking back to that 8,810 promised that were found in the Bible we can be sure that many of those were made by God and we should never forget about God's Promises.  In fact we should take some time to learn more about them.


Sometimes the reason we forget about people or things is because we can't always see them.   This can be the same for promises.







One promise that God made to everyone is easy to remember because God gave us a sign in the bible which is still repeated physically for all the generations since to see.


The Promise of the Rainbow from Genesis chapter 9 v 12 - 17





12 And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 
13 I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 
14 It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; 
15 and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. 
16 The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 
17 And God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth.” 



When we know that God gave us this great reminder of His Promise then we know He intends to keep His promise.

This should encourage us to seek out more of the promises for us in the Bible and get to know more about them.  

Then start remembering that


 



GOD KEEPS HIS PROMISES

even though

we can't always see them 



Every morning as we have breakfast together Fred and I pray to thank God for the previous day and the things we are thankful for from that day.  Then we pray for family, friends and other needs we know about and end by asking for God's care and protection & wisdom.






We can pray this way because
 
we believe God's promises to us

and

because 







God does not forget what He has said!



Because God is not like us who so easily forget.

 We must look at God's Promises in the light of 
WHO GOD IS 
and not who we are.