The Neurobiology and Theology of Vows
A year ago, I told you about a vow I made in a grocery store parking lot—a vow that held me for fifteen years until God tore it down. I thought telling that story would be enough. But this past year, I keep coming back to the same question:
Why did I make that vow in the first place?
And underneath that question, another one, quieter and more unsettling: How many of us are still living under vows we made in moments we’ve long forgotten?
Maybe it wasn’t a grocery store for you. Maybe it was a hospital room, a failed relationship, a leadership disaster, or a conversation that went sideways. But somewhere along the way, in the heat of shame or fear or helplessness, you made a promise to yourself:
I’ll never let that happen again.
I’ll never be that vulnerable.
I’ll stay in control.
Today, I want to explore why we make those vows—and how to know when a promise to ourselves has become a prison.
How Wounds Create Scripts
There’s a reason that moment in the parking lot stayed with me for fifteen years. Neuroscience helps us understand why.
When we experience trauma—even what we might call “smaller” traumas like acute shame, failure, or helplessness—our brain encodes that moment with unusual intensity. The amygdala (our brain’s alarm system) fires, stress hormones flood our system, and our prefrontal cortex (the part of our brain responsible for rational thinking) goes offline. In that state, we’re not reasoning—we’re surviving.
And in survival mode, we make rules.
Dr. Bruce Perry, a trauma researcher, calls these “adaptive survival strategies.” Our brain, trying to protect us from future harm, creates scripts: Never be that vulnerable again. Never lose control. Never let anyone see you fail.
These scripts aren’t always conscious. But they shape everything—how we lead, how we relate, how we show up in moments that require courage.
In the parking lot, my brain wrote a script: Speaking to teens is dangerous. Vulnerability leads to harm. Stay in control.
For fifteen years, I followed that script. I told myself it was discernment. But underneath, it was fear dressed up as stewardship.
Biblical Vows: When Good Intentions Become Prisons
The Bible is full of people making vows in moments of distress—and not all of them end well.
Jephthah made a rash vow in the heat of battle: “If you give me victory, I will sacrifice whatever comes out of my house to meet me” (Judges 11:30-31). He thought he was demonstrating faith. Instead, he ended up sacrificing his own daughter—a tragedy born from a vow made in desperation, not devotion. The text doesn’t celebrate Jephthah’s vow. It grieves it. Because vows made in the fever of fear don’t honor God—they attempt to control Him.
Peter made a vow out of loyalty and fear: “Even if everyone else deserts you, I never will” (Matthew 26:33). Hours later, he denied Jesus three times. But Peter’s vow wasn’t really about loyalty—it was about self-preservation. He was trying to be the disciple he thought Jesus needed, rather than surrendering to the disciple Jesus was forming him to become.
When Jesus met Peter on the beach after the resurrection (John 21), He didn’t ask, “Will you never deny me again?” He asked, “Do you love me?” Three times. A new vow to replace the old script. Not a vow of performance, but a vow of presence.
Paul, on the other hand, made a different kind of vow. When he begged God three times to remove his thorn in the flesh, God’s answer wasn’t removal—it was redefinition: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Paul’s vow shifted from deliver me from this to let this become the place where You show up.
That’s the difference.
Jephthah and Peter made vows to control outcomes. Paul learned to make vows that surrendered control.
Why I Made That Particular Vow
For a year after I first told the parking lot story, I kept wondering: Why did that moment have such power over me?
Other speakers had hard days. Other leaders had situations spiral beyond their control. But not everyone makes a fifteen-year vow in a grocery store parking lot.
So why did I?
This past year, I’ve been learning about my own mental health—specifically, about anxious-preoccupied attachment. It’s a term from attachment theory that describes a nervous system wired to scan constantly for relational rupture, to feel responsible for others’ emotional states, and to carry weight that was never mine to carry in the first place.
When that young man blurted out his friend’s name and her secrets became wildfire through the hallways, my nervous system didn’t just register something bad happened. It registered I caused harm. I failed to protect her. Her pain is my fault.
Never mind that I had no control over what he said. Never mind that the guidance counselor was already moving to help her. Never mind that the situation was far more complex than any single moment could contain.
My brain—my anxious, hypervigilant, relationally attuned brain—collapsed all of that complexity into one unbearable conclusion: I am unsafe. Speaking to teens makes me complicit in harm. The only way to prevent this pain is to never be in this position again.
And so the vow was born.
Dr. Dan Siegel, a neuropsychiatrist, talks about how our attachment styles shape the stories we tell about ourselves. Anxious-preoccupied individuals don’t just notice relational pain—we absorb it. We feel it in our bodies. We rehearse it in our minds. And we create rules to prevent it from ever happening again.
The parking lot vow wasn’t irrational. Given my wiring, it was the most rational thing my brain could do to survive.
But here’s what I’ve learned: A vow that makes perfect sense to a wounded nervous system can still become a cage.
Paul understood this. When he wrote about his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10), he wasn’t just describing physical pain. He was describing the way our bodies and minds create stories about what’s safe and what’s dangerous. Three times he begged God to remove it. Three times God said, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Paul had to learn what I’m still learning: that the script my nervous system writes in survival mode isn’t the final word. That God can hold both my wound and my calling. That meekness—which Jesus called blessed—isn’t the absence of anxiety. It’s the willingness to let God steady what my nervous system can’t.
Not because I’ve conquered anxiety. Not because I’ve mastered my attachment style or rewired my brain. But because I’ve learned that the same nervous system that made me vow never to be vulnerable with teens again is the same nervous system that wakes me at 3 a.m., that feels the weight of every relational fracture, that needs—desperately, constantly—to be reminded that I am held by a God who doesn’t flinch at my fear.
The Invitation
So here’s the question for all of us:
What vow did you make in your parking lot moment?
What script did your wound write that you’ve been following ever since? What promise did you make to yourself in the heat of shame, failure, or fear that now keeps you from the very thing God is calling you toward?
Maybe it’s a vow about ministry. Maybe it’s about marriage, parenting, friendship, risk, or hope. Maybe it’s a vow that once kept you safe but now keeps you stuck.
And maybe—like me—you’ve spent the past year (or fifteen years) following that script, thinking it was wisdom, not realizing it had become a stronghold.
Not all vows are bad. God calls us to make commitments, to covenant, to say yes and mean it. But there’s a difference between a vow rooted in surrender and a vow rooted in self-protection.
Self-protective vows sound like this:
- I will never let anyone see me weak again.
- I will never trust someone who hurt me.
- I will control every outcome so I’m never caught off guard.
These vows are born from pain, and they make sense in the moment. But over time, they don’t protect us—they imprison us. They keep us safe, but they also keep us small. They wall off the wound, but they also wall off intimacy, risk, and the very places where God does His deepest work.
Vows of surrender sound different:
- Lord, I don’t understand this, but I trust You with it.
- I will let this wound speak, even if it costs me.
- I will risk being seen, because hiding is killing me.
These vows don’t promise control. They promise trust. And trust, by definition, requires letting go.
God doesn’t waste our wounds. But He does ask us to surrender the scripts we wrote to protect them.
Because the vow we need isn’t I’ll never be hurt again.
It’s I’ll trust You with what happens next.
And that’s the vow that sets us free.