Growing up, I remember that whenever you were forced to make a promise that you did not want to keep, you would simply cross your fingers behind your back and then you did not have to keep that promise anymore. There have been times in my adult life where that would have been useful if it were true, but that is not how real promises work. There are many times in our lives where we pray to God and ask for him to get us out of a situation, but in doing so we make promises that we do not intend on keeping.
Jonah did the exact same thing in Jonah 2:9 when he said “But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the LORD.” Jonah made a promise to do what God wants him to do while he was in the belly of the fish. When we are in our times of trouble we do pray a modern version of the exact same thing. We will say things along the lines of “I will never miss church again” “I will give every Sunday” or “I will obey what you tell me to.” The problem with this is that we are like Jonah and do not want to do these things. Jonah did not want to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, and we do not always want to obey God.
When we promise something to a friend, we tend to keep that promise. When we promise to God, we do not always intend to keep our word with Him. Matthew 5:37 says “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.” We cannot make promises to people or to God that we do not intend to keep, and we should not base our obedience to God based solely on Him helping us. Jesus also said “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). If we love Jesus we should obey what he says to do.
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