Making a Vow

    A vow is more than a promise.  It goes further than marriage.  A vow is a oral contract that binds the person or people to commit their mind, body, soul, and emotions to something or someone.  It may just be for a period of time like a fast, which means jump and and don't look back.  Get it done.  Sometimes it is a life commitment like marriage.  Done make a vow unless you intend to do everything you can to fulfill it.  A vow is an obligation to a promise.

    People are fickle.  It can be hard to fulfill a vow with people because of all the changing factors that never stop coming.  It does not mean that we are not still expected to fulfill a vow.  A vow to God is spiritually binding.  He is constant, so there is no reason why you can't fulfill that vow.  You have to force yourself to tune out all the distractions.

    In the beginning of the Hebrew nation it was decided that women had to go to their father or husband to get permission to make a vow.  God would not hold them to a vow that people would not let them keep.  Men had the obligation to be the protectors of women.  Women were not educated like the men and probably kept out of most of the daily decisions.  They could not make a fully informed decision at times, but that does not mean that they were not capable.

    A widow or divorced woman lived in dire circumstances.  They had to rely on God and their own whit to survive.  They had to educate themselves.  God rewarded them with a little independence.  They had the right to make decisions for themselves because they had no protection or security in life.  

    Today we need to let people make the vows that they believe God is directing them toward.  You don't have to understand.  They probably don't even realize what they are getting themselves into, but it is their decision.  Let them make it unless you know of some sort of danger that it may lead to.  If it is real, not perceived, then educate them and let them reevaluate to make an educated decision on the vow.  If it is led by God, then they will do it no matter the cost.

Numbers 30