I Made It A Vow And It Broke Me

You did not just decide to do it. You made it a covenant.

That is your word, not mine, and you have used it about four things this year, and every one of them has ended the same way.

It goes like this. You decide, and then because you are serious about it and because you are the kind of woman who does not take these things lightly, you take it to God. You pray about it. You commit it. You may have written something down.

And now it is not a decision any more. It is a promise made to the Lord, and there is a load on it that no ten minute walk has ever been designed to carry.

Week one is fine. Week two is fine. Somewhere in week three you miss one, for an ordinary reason, and what happens next is not disappointment.

It is a spiritual event.

You have broken something you gave to God, and now the whole thing is under a shadow, and going back to it means going back to the scene of a failure, and so you do not, and the thing dies and takes a small piece of your confidence before God with it.

Four times this year. And each time the piece it takes is slightly bigger.

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow

There is an instruction in Ecclesiastes about vows that is blunter than most people expect and is exactly for you.

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. (Ecclesiastes 5:5, King James Version)

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

That is not a warning about being careless with God. Read it again. It is permission not to vow.

You have a verse that offers the option of making no promise at all, and Ecclesiastes 5:5 has never once treated that as the less committed path. The better thing is not to vow, and the Holy Spirit is the one who takes a load off something that was never meant to carry it.

You are able to see how strange this is against everything in you.

Your instinct is that a thing brought to God is more serious than a thing not brought to God, and that not committing it would be a kind of holding back.

The verse says the opposite. It says that where there is a real chance a thing will not be paid, the better option, the more godly option, is not to make the promise in the first place.

And the chapter around it is about being careful with the mouth before God. Let thy words be few. It is not casual and it is not permissive. It is precise, and the precision cuts in your direction.

You are able to decline to promise something, and Ecclesiastes 5:5 has never once made the not vowing the lesser form of seriousness. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a thing that was never sworn to, and the verse names the not vowing as the better option outright.

What the vow is actually doing

Here is the mechanism, and it explains all four.

A vow converts a missed Tuesday into a sin.

You have been attaching a load to something that cannot hold it, and Ecclesiastes 5:5 has never once required a small intention to be sworn to. It is written better is it that thou shouldest not vow, and the Holy Spirit is the one who returns a small thing to its actual size.

Without the vow, a missed Tuesday is a missed Tuesday. You go on Wednesday. Nothing has happened.

With the vow, a missed Tuesday is a broken promise to God. That is an entirely different category of event and it cannot be resolved by going on Wednesday. It requires something. It sits there.

And you know what happens next because it has happened four times: the thing becomes a place where you failed God, and nobody wants to go back to one of those, and so the walk quietly becomes unavailable.

The walk did nothing wrong. It was ten minutes. It got crushed under a load that belonged to something else entirely.

You are able to let ten minutes be ten minutes, and refusing to make it holy has never once made it less than it was. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in an ordinary evening with nothing sworn over it, and Ecclesiastes 5:5 offers the not vowing as the better road.

Do it this week without promising it

So here is the assignment, and it will feel wrong, and the wrongness is the point.

Do the ten minutes this week without promising anything to anybody, including God.

You are able to begin something with no commitment attached to it at all, and starting without a promise has never once been the same as starting half heartedly. It is written than that thou shouldest vow and not pay, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present with a woman putting a coat on with nothing riding on it.

No prayer about it. That is the hard instruction and I want to be clear about what it is and is not.

Not: do not pray. Pray about everything. Pray about your sister and your work and the thing on Thursday.

Do not pray about this. Do not commit it, do not ask for help to keep it, and do not tell the Lord you are going to do it, because every one of those creates the promise that the third week will break.

You are able to go out for ten minutes with your sister the way a person goes for milk, and that has never once been a smaller act of obedience than a promised one. Ecclesiastes 5:5 names the not vowing as the better road, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present in a thing nobody swore over.

And when you miss one, notice what does not happen. Nothing is broken. There is nothing to repent of. Wednesday is available and it costs nothing to use it.

You have permission to do a small good thing casually, and doing it casually has never once been the same as doing it carelessly. Ecclesiastes 5:5 makes the not vowing the better option in plain words, and the Spirit of God is the one who is with somebody who has not sworn anything.