Commitment

In bible study last night we studied Jesus' sermon on the mount, specifically the section where he talks about not swearing at all, that let your 'yes' be 'yes and your 'no' be 'no', swearing in this context meaning not taking a vow on anything be it God, Earth, or your life.  This passage speaks to a lot of things, but something I specifically attached to was this idea of how we try to influence or control our lives.  Now if you know what passage I'm talking about in the center of the passage Jesus says, "Do not swear at all" and proceeds to list out a lot of things not to swear on with the point being you have absolutely no control, not even over the hair on your head. And from that verse, it got me thinking on what people do to manipulate control over there lives.  The strongest thing I could come up with was delayed commitment, or simply maybe. People use maybe in so many contexts, "if I have time", "if I'm feeling up to it", "depends" all of these communicate the maybe. Funny enough the thing that people use often to delay commitment in this digital age is the Maybe button on facebook. You know what I'm talking about, the 3 confirmed "Yes", 5 confirmed "No" and the 22 "Maybes".

What that maybe communicates to me is: I'll go to your event, if and only if, something better/more important doesn't come along first.  And what that communicates to the soul of the person who receives the maybe is, I value you and what your doing only so much, to the point that I want a good time on that day and I'm not convinced that your going to be my best option. So I'm going to reserve my commitment, firstly so I don't seem like a flake for ditching you if I say yes and another option does come, and secondly, so I don't offend you by saying no, communicating to you that I have little to no interest in what your doing.  All of this to control the perception of who we are, or more specifically what we want other people to see.  This my friends is a problem. 

It has now become common place to click this maybe button and forget what the real world implications are of these actions.  The implications being the rampant selfish evaluation of other people, more importantly relationships. By defaulting to Maybe, we select maybe with our relationships, that people are only as worth it as what entertainment they can provide, useful purpose they can serve, or desire they can fill at the time. I'm going to be blunt, this is just plain selfish and prideful.  Not to mention wholesale devaluation of community. 

Commitment isn't about limiting yourself or your "options", its about seeding your pride over to place value in another person. By committing to someone you say, I value you and what your doing more than, my time, my energy, my desires, my wants, and even sometimes my needs.  What a feeling of love, connectedness, appreciation, and respect you give that person.  Commitment is not about obligating yourself to save face, its about engaging another with humility knowing that what they want is no more or less important than what you want.

So I challenge anyone who reads this, let your "yes" mean "yes" and your "no" mean "no", and commit for you can do no greater deed for any friend.