ALWAYS STAND FOR YOUR WORDS

By Robert Bake

There was a Reverend who had publicly confessed that he had left alcohol. Then one day, a thirsty man found him sipping from a bottle of ‘mineral water’, forcefully grabbed the bottle and took a sip. Spitting it out the man screamed: “Reverend, how come you your water is bitter?” “You mean it’s bitter?”, answered the Reverend “Praise Jesus! He has done it again; I mean what he did at Cana”! The Reverend had failed the test of standing for his words when he declared he had quit boozing.

If I am not being betrayed by my memory, the greatest thing that always caused rage at home during my childhood days was when someone promised to bring me something or to take me somewhere and didn’t deliver. No matter how small the promise was, not fulfilling it always eroded trust and confidence in such a person.

It is not uncommon for us to promise and not fulfil, a thing that has become normal behaviour for some people. People promise jobs, assistance, friendship, e.t.c, only to be seen nowhere when time to deliver comes. People will promise to be there for you only to forget (or at least pretend they forgot) their promise when stormy days come. We have seen many couples publicly promising each other to stay together for better for worse, till death do them part, only to see infidelity, alcohol, witchcraft, greed, arrogance, money, and so on, part them.

As Christians it’s important to stand for our words. When you propose marriage to someone, or accept someone’s marriage proposal, you are bound by your words, so you won’t have ground to propose or accept a second proposal until the first one has been cancelled. There is an African proverb that while a donkey is tied by the rope, a man is tied by his words. Politicians, as well, won’t escape this reality – accountability for our words – especially as we near 2011. A politician will say something and when the media quotes the exact words, even using vocal recordings as evidence, he/she still gets the audacity to say “I was misquoted”! Saying what we mean and meaning what we say is part of our social responsibility as human beings.

Bake is an author,
& Managing Director, World of Inspiration.