Scripture: Genesis 21:1-7
Focus on the Word
Abraham and Sarah waited twenty-five years for God’s promise to materialize. Twenty-five years, one quarter of a century. At times they struggled with the promise, second-guessing what God was doing, logically seeking to figure it all out. Why wouldn’t they? The promise came when Abraham was 75 years of age and Sarah was 65 years. They were on the clock, weren’t they? Time was passing and her tummy wasn’t getting larger. Where was God? What was God up to? How involved were they to be in helping God out? Twenty-five years!
Twenty-four years into the journey, they were promised that next year the child would be born, and Sarah laughed. Why wouldn’t she? Now she is 89 years old, and she was being told that when she is 90 she will have a baby. She laughed; out loud. Wouldn’t you? But God kept His Word and one year later Sarah gave birth to a baby boy whom they named, “Isaac,” meaning, “He laughs.” The ridiculous had become the sublime, and at 90 Sarah gave birth to a miracle. There was laughter in that household. After the birth Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me…Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age” (Genesis 21:6-7, NASB).
We certainly don’t understand the ways of God, do we? Can we trust Him, though? When every thing seems to be working against the ways and means of God, can we trust Him to act “at the appointed time” (Genesis 21:2)? That’s a big question because we don’t know God’s timing. The wait may be long, very long. Can we trust Him?
In Lent we are called back into the mystery of God’s timing. The clock is ticking, and maybe we don’t see what we so desperately want to see. Maybe the journey is hard and tumultuous. Maybe the silence and the darkness and the uncertainty are barreling down on us at breakneck speed. Can we trust God as the world is spinning around us? Hear these words from Babbie Mason and Eddie Carswell:
God is too wise to be mistaken, God is too good to be unkind. So when you don't understand, When don't see His plan, When you can't trace His hand, Trust His Heart.
Today’s Prayer
O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. You have been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to Your Presence. Open my eyes that I may behold You in and around me. For Christ's sake, Amen. (A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God)
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