THE ULTIMATE PROMISE KEEPER
T. Wieland Allen
Very few people are known to always keep their promises. Parents often promise things they will never be able to keep. Children promise to do things for their parents that they can't do. Wives and husbands promise to love their partners the rest of their lives but end up divorcing. Business managers promise raises for their workers that they cannot give. Everyone breaks promises as a regular part of life.
I have found through the years that God never, ever breaks His promises. A few things in the earth depend upon His ability to keep His promises, one of which is our following his request for us to clean up our thoughts, attitudes and actions. Recently I was overwhelmed with His promise to me and how He kept it so quickly.
I previously wrote a story regarding the situation and God's instructions to me, but I will repeat the pertinent facts in order for you to understand His recent promise and His keeping His promise to me. It involved a silly thing of a neighbor's unkempt yard.
The corner of a neighbor's yard had been the dumping ground for all of the broken, rotted trees, huge stumps, broken tree limbs from the past years of storms and high grass. Unfortunately, that corner of his yard was in view of my home. I could see some of the unsightly scene from my windows but when I drove by the yard I got a full view of the portion of the neighbor's yard which his workmen used as a dump for debris. The neighborhood association had fixed the chain link fence when it sagged and pulled the posts out of the ground. That helped, but the piles of huge limbs and stump was an unsightly mess and cheapened the image of the nice area in which I live.
I had decided to buy some sections of wooden fencing and pay someone to put the six feet high fencing onto the existing fence, hoping to conceal the mess from eye view from the street. I had even priced fencing and was willing to pay for the eight feet long sections of fencing. Now, mind you, it was none of my business, but I made it my business by being perturbed about it. Every time I drove by the area my eyes immediately were drawn to the huge piles of broken limbs and stumps in the yard of the neighbor.
A friend of mine had had a situation come up in her life that was causing her much mental turmoil and one day a song came to her mind that said "Don't sell your saddle 'cause life is a long, long ride." That song put into her mind by God had encouraged her not to let anything take away her peace of mind, the result being that my friend eliminated some responsibilities from her life. I even taught a Bible study lesson on her testimony, warning the other ladies to also not allow anything or anyone to take away their peace.
On the way home from teaching that lesson, as I drove my car onto the section of road that passed the corner of the neighbor's yard that had become a problem in my mind, that still, small voice of God inside my mind said, "When you pass his yard, don't look that direction at the debris; but, instead, look to the left at your own beautiful yard." I had never thought of that before. I did it. I merely turned my head and looked at my well manicured and beautifully planted yard instead of looking on the debris in the neighbor's yard. What an easy solution. That is what I did every time I drove down that section of road, looked at my yard instead of the corner with its mess. It's interesting that when the instructions came from God to stop looking at that yard, I knew that if I would do what God said to do, that I would have peace of mind; and it also occurred to me that some day I would look over there and the yard would be completely cleaned up. I got real excited about that, and every time I drove by I diverted my attention from the neighbor's yard to my beautiful yard, I had an excitement in my spirit about some day looking over there and seeing that all of the debris was gone.
Little did I know that God's promises can quickly be fulfilled when we do what he asks us to do. Was I ever in for a surprise.
A week after God told me to stop looking at the yard in question, I rose early one morning and kept hearing a loud beep, beep, beep. I checked my smoke alarms. Their batteries were okay. I opened the door and the beeping was loud. I stepped out the door and followed the beeping. Lo and behold, the beeping was coming from the neighbor's back yard, the offending corner in particular. There was a tractor picking up the giant dead stumps and dead limbs, depositing them into huge commercial trash bins. The tractor was also digging up old, dead trees, scoops of dead grass and also depositing them into the bins.
God's promise was being fulfilled. It came to me that all of my efforts to fix the problem took it out of God's hands and put it in my hands. When I stopped being concerned about it, stopped looking at the yard and praying all the time to bless the owner of the land, then God was able to do His mighty works. AND IT WAS SO SOON, much sooner than I anticipated.
Sure enough, in one day, the entire large back yard was completely cleared of all the yard trash and the ground has been sheered of all the dead grass. After I got my attitude right toward the owner and the yard, God was able to quickly solve the problem that had been an eyesore for five years. All of my concern and efforts to solve the problem myself were useless because it wasn't my yard. It was none of my business. When I stopped making it my business, forgave the neighbor for allowing his yard to become a dump yard for broken trees, dead stumps, etc., it didn't take long for God to do His mighty work. That little tractor was like a mighty angel, scooping up cares and depositing them into the trash bin.
I learned my lesson of never allowing anything to rob me of joy and peace. It all came through a song that translated to mean to me, "Don't let anything rob you of your peace of mind because in the future you will need it." I was blocking God's ability to do His work by making something my business that was none of my business. Loving the neighbor and doing good to him was my only business. It took my friend to alert me to that admonition by God.
Today there are two tractors in that yard looking like two huge angels completing the work they started yesterday. That yard will be, to me, a testimony to God's keeping His promises. I can look at it now with joy and delight that My Heavenly Father does all things perfectly. AND SOONER THAN WE IMAGINE.
