Swearing

There are times when we over commit.  I have done it.  Still do.  It is something with which I particularly struggle when I see a need that needs to be met.  The pull is to deplete my resources either financially, physically, mentally, or spiritually to meet that need.

The reality is that no matter how well I plan, how well I schedule, what kind of margin I create, all of it can be wiped away in an instant.  Ask Job.  If you want to ask a more contemporary individual, ask someone who lost everything in Katrina, Sandy, or the May 3, 1999, EF5 Bridge Creek – Moore Tornado.  But it does not take something of the magnitude of those events to move me into the negative resource column.  The point of this is that there are circumstances for which no amount of planning will suffice.  Those kinds of circumstances are not the subject of this post.

There are times when I have not knowingly over committed that I find I am.  Usually, this happens when my margin is low.  When some unforeseen event happens that drives those aforementioned resources negative.  I find myself struggling with Psalm 15:4 and Matthew 5:33 – 37 when that happens.

Those two passages conspire to convince me that if I tell someone I will do something.  I had better well do it.  It seems to me that more often than not it is these types of circumstances that force me to trust God.  To rely on His unlimited resources rather than my sorely inadequate stash.