I’ve never been good at waiting.
I was reminded of this yesterday when my husband was trying to make a flight to Brazil. He was delayed. For over eight hours. First there was no flight crew. Then there was no backup flight crew. Then there was freezing fog that iced the plane. Meanwhile I was at home getting texts, obsessively checking flight status, and looking at the globe to figure his latest flight route.
I wasn’t even the one at the airport and I was stressed out. I’m okay waiting if I’m in control, but having to wait and for someone else to solve the problem? It’s like my own personal nightmare.
Sarah understood waiting.
When God called Abram out of Ur Sarah had already endured a lifetime of waiting. Abram was 75, so Sarah–Sarai then–was 65. In a culture where a woman’s value rested on her ability to have children for her husband, Sarah was childless. And then she had hope. God called Abram to leave his land and go to a land God would show him. God promised Abram would become “a great nation” (Genesis 12:1-3). Wouldn’t that somehow mean children for Sarah?
And still Sarah waited. She followed Abram to Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan. She waited in silence as her husband traded her to a foreign king–twice. She waited as Abram grew so wealthy that he had to separate from his nephew, Lot, then rescue Lot in a climactic battle. She waited, and God made covenant with Abraham, and Sarah grew older every year.
Is it any wonder that Sarah eventually took matters into her own hands? In seasons of waiting, we’re tempted to seize any vestige of control we can grasp. Giving her maid to Abraham so that Sarah could have a child to call her own was culturally acceptable. Some bridal contracts from the time period include a similar provision if the bride was unable to have children. It seemed a logical and neat solution. Yet God was not about logical and neat. God was writing the story of redemption in Sarah’s life, and it began with a promise only God could keep.
Yet the waiting went on. God spoke to Abraham. God even spoke to Hagar. Yet Sarah only experienced silence and waiting. Waiting as Hagar bore a child. Waiting until Abraham was 99 and she was 89 and it seemed all hope was gone.
Then God dropped by for a visit.
The Lord came to Abram and Sarai’s tent one afternoon. But this time, God had words for Sarah too:
“Where is your wife Sarah?” they asked him.
“There, in the tent,” he said.
Then one of them said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”
Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Will I really have a child, now that I am old? ‘ Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”
Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.”
But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” (Genesis 17:9-15).
Sarah laughed at the impossibility of it all. But what is impossible for us is only a glimmer on the horizon of what is possible for God. And though she laughed, Sarah’s waiting was over. Within the year Sarah gave birth to a son. She was 90 and Abraham was 100. They named their baby boy “Isaac”–laughter.
We often remember Sarah for her mistake with Hagar. And yet, the New Testament remembers her as a woman of faith.
And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise (Hebrews 11:11).
Sarah waited on God’s promise. She made mistakes along the way, but in the end she learned to consider God faithful.
Our temptation in waiting is to try to achieve what God has already accomplished. Like Sarah, sometimes seasons of waiting may make us question if God has forgotten. But God does not abandon us in the silence. He uses the waiting seasons to teach us to wait on him.
In Advent we celebrate the waiting. Advent reminds us that God keeps his promise; that the silence ends with the living Word. Like Sarah, we wait on the Promise. And all God’s promises are yes in Him.
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God was writing the story of redemption in Sarah’s life, and it began with a promise only God could keep. Click to Tweet
Advent reminds us that God keeps his promise; that the silence ends with the living Word. Click to Tweet
God does not abandon us in the silence. He uses the waiting seasons to teach us to wait on him. Click to Tweet.
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What promise are you waiting on?