Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Promises, promises. St. Paul made promises, promises to visit people and churches. But he was a busy man. Sometimes his casual promises couldn’t be fulfilled. Maybe he even knew as 
he was making the promises that there’d be no way they’d be kept; maybe it was just easier to say yes, knowing the ultimate result would be no.
We do the same thing. We agree to help out at the food pantry, visit a sick friend, create a ministry poster, or emcee a parish event. And then, later, well, we look at our calendars and think about our other obligations. We back out. We make up excuses, or maybe we’re even honest enough to simply say, I overbooked. All understandable, of course. Except that because we said a yes that ended up being a no, the shelves don’t get restocked as quickly at the food pantry, the friend is lonely, the poster doesn’t get done, and someone whose gift is not public speaking takes over the emcee duties. Not only are we diminished when yes really means no, but we contribute to the diminishment of others.
With God, on the other hand, yes means yes, as Paul tells us today in 2 Corinthians 1:20:
For however many are the promises of God, their Yes is in him; therefore, the Amen from us also goes through him to God for glory.
God means yes all the time. He loves us. He desires only the best for us. He will be present whenever we like for adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication. God never reneges on His yes to us. Can we start by living up to the yeses we give to Him?
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