November 6: Is anything too hard for God?

The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him.  Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years.  Sarah had passed the age of childbearing.  So she laughed to herself: “After I have become shriveled up and my lord is old, will I have delight?”  But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”  (Genesis 18:10-14 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Sarah and Abraham had been waiting for a promise to come true.  When she was already 65, God promised her husband that he would become the father of a great nation, but what about her?  Maybe her husband would become a father, but was the promise meant for her as well?  She was his only wife, but uncertainty had crept into her heart as year after year went by, and no child was conceived. A disastrous attempt to “fix” her imagined problem brought about the birth of Ishmael by her slave girl — a son to Abraham, but not the son of God’s promise.

And now, 25 years later, angels appear at their tent bringing the joyful assertion that the promise of a child still holds — not just for Abraham, for Sarah too.  It’s clear by her reaction that her hope in that promise had shriveled up over time, just as she imagined herself to be.  She laughed. She looked at herself, at the passing of time, perhaps at the shame of her clumsy solution to provide a son, and she could only see inadequacy and failure.  Yet Sarah’s spirit lifted when she heard their words.  She dared to believe, “will I have delight?”

When God promises, He promises.  Good news from the mouth of God never changes or turns sour.  It can be counted on, and will come to pass.  But when our small minds decide that His promises are taking too long and then take matters into our own hands, we complicate our lives and reveal how little we trust.  God never viewed Abraham and Sarah as “old and shriveled,” and 25 years of waiting was nothing compared to the decades of joy they would have after their son Isaac was finally born.  In their eyes, life was coming to and end.  In God’s eyes, everything was just beginning!  

Despite her inadequacies, Sarah chose to believe and took ahold of the angels’ words that day.  One year later, her promised child was born.  Don’t look at your inadequacies today, look at the promises God has made for you.  Remember the words that He speaks to you every time you come to church, and every time you read His Word.  They may not materialize instantaneously, but they are promises meant to stake your life on.