Who Keeps His Oath

Psalm 15:1 "Lord who may dwell in your sanctuary, who may live on your holy hill? He...who keeps his oath, even when it hurts."

"Keeps his oath"--not as common in our world today. Today it is just changing your mind when you go back on your word.

This reminded me of a time in my life when my Dad kept his oath even when it hurt. We were living in a small house that I grew up in on Tant Road and we had outgrown it. 

Two bedrooms and one bath. Susan and I shared a room and she kept breathing my air and I was bossy to her!

When Dad heard about a man at our church selling his house in Bartlett we looked at the house and decided it was the one for us. Dad and the man made a verbal agreement that we would buy it for a certain price. 

Dad then went home and put our house up for sale. It sold quickly and the buyer and Dad made a verbal agreement until the paperwork could be drawn up. Later we received word from the man we were buying from that he had started looking at houses in Nashville where he was moving and the cost of living was higher. He would have to go up on his asking price even though he had agreed on the original price. 

Dad had a choice. He could go back on his word or we would have to move out in a few weeks. Dad wouldn't "change his mind" even though it hurt. We frantically started looking at apartments, rentals, and houses. Finally a man at Dad's work had a rental house across town that we could move into. 

Although this rental house had old dirty carpet and had been a house with several cats living in it, we started cleaning and using several bottles of Lysol and moved in. We lived there close to a year until we found a house we could afford in Bartlett.

Lesson learned--a man taught his family that his word was his oath and he made a commitment to keep it. I remembered it 50 years later.