Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son. Genesis 18:14 (NIV)
Not Just Any Promise – The Spirit Series – Part 3
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7 | PART 8
Abraham and Sarah were on the edge of a dream-come-true. They had been visited by an angel and received a promise from God. Not just any promise – God had told them that even though it would take a miracle, their desire to have a child would be satisfied. And from that child, their descendants would fill the earth.
They were no strangers to miracles or journeys of faith… Abraham and Sarah had lived a life full of them. I can imagine their joy, anticipation, and the risk they must have felt when they left their original tribe and followed the voice of God into the unknown, into unchartered territory. Did they stay up late at night staring at the stars wondering where would they end up? What their new tribe would be like? What they would they name their children? What and who would come after them?
But something was not going according to plan. Sarah was not falling pregnant. For a promise that was all about descendants, this was a massive problem.
It took Jesse and me two years to fall pregnant with our first child. Every month that I didn’t fall pregnant was heartbreaking. It seemed that everywhere I looked, women had ‘beautiful baby bellies’… Some of my friends had ‘unplanned’ pregnancies… and while I was happy for them, I grew heartsick for my own unfulfilled dreams of having a child. Many of you know the journey of infertility, much more than I, and you know that it’s a hard one to walk.
That was Sarah’s journey, too.
Have you ever received a promise or an inkling of purpose from the Divine in prayer? Or felt that you were born to do something specific? Sure of what the future should hold for you? Only to have those dreams and hopes dwell just out of reach in the realm of impossibility?
What Sarah did next gets a lot of commentary from those of us who view the story from afar. She had lost all hope of ever conceiving a child, so she told Abraham to go and impregnate their servant girl. (WHAT!!!!) They would raise the child as their own, and he would become the promise of God.
“How could she? What was she thinking? She must have had such little faith!”
Hang on!! Really?
I think we’ve all been where Sarah was. Maybe we haven’t told our husbands to go and sleep with someone else to create a baby we could call our own… But, I know I’ve tried to birth things out of my own control, force things to happen in my own strength, when they were not happening the way I wanted them to and according to my schedule. Hopelessness makes people sick. It’s not that Sarah had little faith; she had done everything God had told her. And still, the promise seemed like an impossibility. What would've you done when in this situation?
Even though Sarah attempted to fix what she thought God couldn’t, making a right mess of things, the spirit moved… the Divine showed up, and Sarah grew a baby within her belly. The promise was not averted through her hope-sick heart, it happened as well as everything else. Swelling within her, hope growing by the day.
Hope is born of struggle. It’s not birthed out of ease or abundance but is kept alive by the spirit. And even though our lives and circumstance might seem crazy, dark and unknowable, we are connected to God by faith and hope. Joined by, and in, spirit. It's the connective tissue that sits just underneath the surface of our tangible reality.
Perhaps Sarah, years before Zechariah and Zerubbabel, learned what they would too: “You can’t force these things. They only come about through my [God’s] Spirit.” Zech 4:6 MSG.
Go to Part 4 – A Woman Who Failed »
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