Back in the days when fear played a large part in my life, I remember worrying about my husband leaving on a trip. “Just promise me you’ll come home,” I said.

Poor guy. What do you say to that? He would always realistically reply something like, “Well, that’s certainly my intention. But I can’t make promises about things that are outside of my control.”

He was right, of course. There is security we long for that no human can deliver. We might as well live in reality instead of pretending otherwise. I’m glad he wouldn’t make a promise if he couldn’t keep it.

Sometimes people break promises because they won’t do the hard work of following through. They lack the integrity or the willingness to keep the promise.

Sometimes they break them because they didn’t have the power to make them in the first place. There are forces bigger than their ability or control.

God doesn’t fall into either of those categories.

He is able to make promises.

He is always true to His word, so He would never issue a promise that He either couldn’t or wouldn’t fulfill.

And here He is, willing to make His people a promise of peace. Willing, and able to deliver.

I have been reading through the whole book of Ezekiel. Right after I finished Jeremiah. And while my own nation looks to be facing similar judgments of violence, pestilence, natural disasters. It’s been kinda depressing.

The depressing part in both the recorded history of Israel and the current news is the widespread unwillingness to repent. Why wouldn’t they/you/I turn around? Just how hard-headed and stupid do we want to be? To death?

Yet that is the very milieu in which God makes this trustworthy promise. At the bottom point of despair. When the bones in the Valley are dry. Look at His nature on display here. While He is declaring a message of rightful judgment, He is promising a covenant of peace on His part that cannot be explained with any other motive than pure grace—favor that we did not earn ourselves.

He doesn’t quit.

And He doesn’t just “maintain” in the midst of our dysfunction. His faithful love moves us not only out of the negative numbers of judgment but also into the positive of “covenant of peace.”

Astounding.

The covenant He makes includes space for His people, multiplication, and His presence. Dominion, birthright, growth, legacy, blessing, relationship, all wrapped up in those words. By His promise.

We don’t hope for peace from some namby-pamby in the sky who is nice and well-intentioned, but has his hands tied. We don’t hope for peace from someone who arbitrarily decides he doesn’t feel like giving any today.

We hope for peace from the One whose name is Faithful and True, Ancient of Days, Maker of heaven and earth. This promise comes from the mouth of the One who can deliver it. Power AND Faithfulness.

The promise is good as gold because of Who made it.