Every time I approach what I will write about what I read in a chapter, it’s not straight forward.
Sometimes it’s hard to find a topic to write about. Other times there is so much that could be written about that choosing one is a challenge.
Chapter 18 is such an example of being rich with issues to take. The tremendous hospitality of Abraham when the three visitors came. The subsequent conversation Abraham had with one of those visitors and the bargaining that took place. All these things are rich with incident to comment on and give God thanks for.
Yet what catches my eye is Sarah. What Sarah does when she hears the message the visitors have to deliver is more than understandable. The facts suggest that being way beyond childbearing age, there is no way she can be giving birth to anyone. She’s not just past it, she is so far past it the mere thought made her think, you must be having a laugh. Not only her condition, but her husband was hardly in the peak condition to be a seed provider.
What is it about God and His love of stretching our faith even as the facts suggest otherwise? Noah building an ark and people witnessing that and not having a clue about what was to come – and Noah only believing God by faith. Abraham when he was Abram picking up sticks and moving to the middle of nowhere for some promise made by some invisible deity.
Here is the crunch of it for Sarah. They tried the Hagar solution and that didn’t work out for all parties, but now here are three strangers and they have a message that the promise is still on.
I know what it’s like to truly suggest to God that there’s no way He can possibly work a way out of some tight and impossible situations. I have even brought it to His attention, because He obviously needed to know. What makes it worse, it is not as though I don’t have a precedent. Episodes like this reaffirm again that what might be impossible to man is always possible with God.
I can relate with Sarah’s laugh, but it is still for us to walk by faith and not by sight. Sarah’s response is nothing to laugh at ourselves, it is to see this as another of a long list of examples of the goodness of God to say the impossible and delivering on the impossible for His own glory.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
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