The Promises We Forget and the People Who Don't
Why some of the deepest wounds are caused not by what we do, but by what we quietly fail to do.
Welcome to Sunday’s article for all subscribers.
Paid subscribers receive a daily reflection and access to the complete archive. I would love to welcome you today.
If you’ve recently joined us, you may also be interested in my new book, Sacred & Secular: Find God in the Ordinary, which brings together some of the most popular and thought-provoking essays from this journey so far.
A few years ago, someone waited behind after the service to talk.
As a parish priest, I learned to recognise that particular look. It was the look of someone carrying a heavy load. The congregation had gone home, the church had grown quiet, and now they needed to say what they had really come to say.
We sat down together.
“I don’t think God can ever forgive me for this.”
Over the years, I heard those words in one form or another countless times.
People carried deep regrets. A relationship that had gone wrong. A decision they wished they could undo. A moment of weakness they could never quite forget. The details may have differed, but the underlying fear was the same. They believed they had crossed some invisible line and that forgiveness was no longer possible.
What always struck me, however, was that the sins people worried about most were not always the ones Scripture seemed most concerned about.
— • —
We tend to focus on the obvious failures. You know, the public ones and those mistakes we make that can be named, labelled and remembered.
Yet the Bible has a habit of drawing our attention somewhere else. Again and again, it asks us to look beneath the surface and consider things we might otherwise overlook.
One of the clearest examples comes from a story that most of us rarely read.
It is found in Genesis 38.
At first glance, it is an uncomfortable and complicated passage. Tamar marries into Judah’s family, but her husband dies before they have children. According to the customs of the time, another son was expected to provide for her and continue the family line. That arrangement also collapses. Eventually, Judah promises that his youngest son will be given to her when he is old enough.
Then nothing happens.
Tamar waits. Years pass, and life moves on for Judah, but not for Tamar. In the end, the promise disappears into the background. Eventually, desperate and with few options available to her, Tamar takes matters into her own hands. She disguises herself, deceives Judah, and becomes pregnant by him.
It is a story full of moral complexity. There are plenty of actions we might question and mistakes we might identify.
Yet when the truth finally emerges, Judah says something unexpected.
“She is more righteous than I.”
The statement catches us off guard because Judah does not focus on Tamar’s deception. Instead, he recognises his own failure.
He had made a promise. He had known what was required of him and had understood the consequences of his actions. Then he had simply failed to follow through.
There is no great act of violence. No spectacular rebellion or scandal that would make headlines. Instead, there is a promise quietly abandoned.
The consequences, however, are profound. Tamar’s future depended on Judah’s word. What felt like a minor issue to him shaped the course of her entire life.
— • —
I have recently realised how often this still happens.
Most of us do not break promises in dramatic ways and rarely wake up intending to disappoint people. More often, promises fade and are forgotten. We promise to stay in touch, to help, or to be there. At the time, we genuinely meant it.
Then life becomes busy. Circumstances change. Other priorities emerge. Days become weeks and weeks become months. Eventually, the commitment that once seemed important just slips away.
We tell ourselves that people will understand, and the truth is that sometimes they do. But sometimes they don’t. The person on the receiving end often experiences it very differently. What feels like a forgotten conversation to one person can feel like a significant loss to another.
I sometimes wonder whether we measure wrongdoing in the wrong way.
We tend to judge things by how shocking they appear, whereas the Bible often judges things by how much harm they cause. Sadly, those are not always the same thing.
A careless word can wound someone for years. A neglected responsibility can alter the direction of a life. A broken promise can undermine trust long after the details have been forgotten.
None of these things make headlines, yet they matter.
When Jesus spoke about integrity, his teaching was remarkably simple.
“Let your yes be yes and your no be no.”
There is something refreshingly straightforward about that. He does not offer a complicated formula or lengthy explanation. He simply calls people to become those whose words carry weight. People whose commitments mean something.
— • —
This seems increasingly important.
We live in a culture that often treats commitments as provisional. Promises are made enthusiastically and withdrawn easily. Obligations are embraced when convenient and abandoned when costly. Faithfulness can feel old-fashioned.
Yet faithfulness sits at the very heart of the biblical story.
One of the most remarkable things about God in Scripture is not simply his power or wisdom. It is his consistency.
Again and again, God is described as faithful. A God who keeps covenant and remembers promises. A God whose character remains dependable even when human beings prove unreliable.
Actually, the entire story of salvation depends on that reality. God does not abandon his promises when they become difficult or lose interest when circumstances change. He remains faithful.
If we are called to reflect God’s character in the world, then surely that faithfulness should be visible in us as well.
None of this is intended to induce a guilt trip. None of us is perfect, and we all forget things at times. Yet Scripture consistently calls us towards faithfulness. It challenges us to become people whose words and actions align, and who take seriously the commitments we make.
— • —
That is why the story of Judah and Tamar continues to challenge me.
It asks uncomfortable questions.
Where have I promised more than I delivered?
Where have I allowed good intentions to replace genuine faithfulness?
Where has someone relied upon my word only to discover it was less dependable than they thought?
Those questions are not easy to answer. They require honesty and force us to look beyond the obvious failures we already recognise and examine the quieter places where we may have fallen short.
Yet perhaps that is where repentance often begins.
Not with dramatic gestures or attempts to prove ourselves worthy. Simply by seeing things clearly.
Judah’s moment of transformation begins when he stops justifying himself and names the truth.
“She is more righteous than I.”
There is much wisdom in that. Real change usually starts when we stop defending ourselves and start paying attention. When we recognise the promises we have forgotten, but others still remember. When we acknowledge the responsibilities that we sometimes set aside.
On my desk sits a little card that simply reads
‘Words have the power of life and death’
I return to it often. It reminds me that somewhere, often without our knowing, another person may be building part of their life on our words and actions.
And that is a responsibility worth taking seriously.
Thank you for reading today’s reflection.
Paul