If you make a vow to the LORD your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it, for the LORD your God will surely require it of you, and you will be guilty of sin. But if you refrain from vowing, you will not be guilty of sin. Deuteronomy 23:21-22
Patient, “I swear I’m going to stop drinking.”
Me, “Excellent. What’s your plan?”
Patient, “That is my plan – I swear to stop drinking.”
Me, “That’s a good goal, but that’s not a plan.”
This represents a conversation I have frequently with those who wish to find recovery. They’ve experienced significant misery from their addiction and so, they wish to stop. They’ve tried repeatedly and failed, yet still, they hope that they can simply promise themselves they’ll quit and make it so.
I’ve been there. Many times, I promised God, my wife, and myself that I’d stop abusing opioids. I changed nothing in my life though. I thought I could find sobriety by simply flipping a switch in my brain. The problem, however, was that my brain had been damaged by 15 years of poor decisions which couldn’t simply be undone in one momentary good decision. So, each time I promised to stop, I soon found myself using again.
Anyone who’s made a New Year’s resolution to eat healthy and lose weight understands this. Simply promising to stop a behavior, without making any actual changes, isn’t a plan. Or rather, it’s a plan for failure.
Today’s passage says that it’s better to make no vow at all than to make a vow and fail to do it. Once, we say we’ll do a thing, we make ourselves liars if we don’t follow through. Promising to do something, and then failing to carry it out, creates a worse condition than if we never promised at all.
Ten years ago, when I truly found recovery, I made no promises to my wife. She’d heard it all before and knew from experience that she couldn’t trust me. So, I simply did the work of recovery. I went to treatment. I attended meetings. I got up early every day to point my life at God instead of myself. I made radical life changes to which I’m still committed 10 years later. My empty promises were never going to make me sober or restore my marriage. It was only in action – in radical obedience to God – that my life and my marriage were transformed.
Words are cheap, and if we’ve broken our vows repeatedly, they mean nothing. Promising to be different isn’t a plan. It’s a good goal, but it’s not a plan. If we truly desire to change, we must go to God, asking what it is we must do. Then, we must do it.