A promise with no vision of the future is not a promise.
It is just empty and vain words.
It is just saying words that sound good coming from your lips. (people do that you know)
Before you make a promise you should think about the future of that promise. Do not just jump in because you are feeling good. Say if you need more time. Consider also if you are being coerced to be imprisoned by your own words.
Growing up in my small town,the words, "I promise" became a non effective promise. You would hear the words "I swear to God" to make it have some weight. Some would go further and say, "I swear on my mother's grave". It was saying, I promise with all that I am and all that is dear to me, including let my mother die if I'm not telling the truth. Probably it was a little strong for a kid to say that then, but sometimes the other person would demand it.
Maybe thirty years before that people would ask, do you promise? And the other person would say, "my word is my bond". And they would shake hands and go about their way.
Bishop Charles Henry Taliefero told me years ago, should a man formally proposed to a woman, he could not back out of the marriage promise. If he did, his name was mud wherever he went from that time on. One of the disciplinary actions he received was, he could not ever marry until he straightened it out with the formally intended. In a small sense he wore the scarlet letter.
A promise could not be empty or vain words.
In present times, promises seem to carry no weight at all.
Seems like anyone can default on a promise now. It's just defaulting. When a person says I'll be at a certain place at a certain time, and arrives late he or she has broken their promise.
Sure, there are extenuating circumstances.
Nevertheless if you have it in your power to do what you promised then you must do it. You must do it with all of your might. It must be the primary thing.
Don't make a promise if you can't keep it. Or put a provision of extenuating circumstances in it.
The older church people in the day when I was young would say, "if the Lord wills", or "if the Lord says the same".
It is very important that we keep our word.
God always kept his word. Whatever he said, he did it. Whatever he spoke he brought it to pass. The promise that he would redeem the world from the fall of Adam. There is not a promise that God has spoken that he did or will not fulfill. In fact, word of promise that he spoke to others, his word is so strong that we can also stand on those words for ourselves. If we can find it in the word, we can apply it to our own situation. God's word goes out of his mouth and it does not return to him empty handed. God's word is held responsible by God himself. When God speaks everything of substance and none substance must obey. Which says his word is ever creative. It goes out and and accomplishes what it is sent to do. This is always an expectation and a demand for it to accomplish. This is the reason faith works. It is based upon the accomplishing word of God.
When reading the word of promise we must keep in mind not to just accent to it but to believe it because God the creator of all things spoke it outright or by the agency of a human being. Just as he said let there be and it was. The same word is a promise kept. Creative and promissory. It is continual. It stands on its own merits. It is the word of the only wise God.
Much like time it soon passes us by, before we know it, it is gone. 
