Have you laughed at God’s promises recently? How ridiculous have they sounded recently? Have you reached the point where you wonder how impossible it is rather than the point where the only possibility of success lies in God’s hands?
There’s a big difference.
We know that some of God’s promises will only be seen to be kept when we stand with him in heaven. There are things about the kingdom of God that we know are “not-yet” but there is plenty about that kingdom that is is “now” too. Being able to live with the tension between the now and the not-yet is a challenge and, like many of our predecessors and antecedents in scripture, we find it hard to discern the difference.
Then there’s another problem. Do you worry that laughing at God’s promises mean he won’t keep them?
Sarah’s story is an example of God keeping his promise despite fears and anxieties, hang ups and errors of judgement, laughter and disbelief.
Why the change of name?
When God changes Abram (‘exalted father’) to Abraham (‘father of many’), Sarai becomes Sarah, but there is no real difference in meaning. Two possibilities exist for the change of name.
First: Because Sarah is usually understood to mean princess, the change of name makes more explicit the ‘mother of kings’ promise of 17:16. Remember at this point Sarai or Sarah has had no children, so God underlines the promise he makes: I will bless her and surely give you a son by her, and connects it with his covenant with Abraham that I will nations of you, and kings will come from you.
Second: The second possibility is more sentimental. One possible reading of Sarai is that it means my princess. In other words, it was almost like Abram’s pet name for his wife. Sarai was Abram’s world, he loved her no matter what. He went to great lengths to protect her and, despite her barrenness, he remained faithful to her. She was his princess and her name said it all.
But God has a different plan, so Sarai, the princess who belonged to Abram, become Sarah the princess because God blesses her and keeps his promise to her.
Abraham’s promise was always to love her, but he could nothing about her childlessness. God’s promise was to bless her and he could do something and he did.
Sarai is no longer just Abraham’s princess, she is God’s princess too.
Sadly the writer of Genesis does not explain which, if either of these possibilities is true, so if you’re in the mood for a nice, romantic approach to the story, that’s okay. If you just want the logical explanation, it’s there too!
Sarah and Hagar
The imperfections of the family are brought to the fore as the story of Hagar and Sarah unfold into the story of Ishmael and Isaac.
Sarah was desperate to have a son, desperate to have a child. So desperate that she persuaded Abraham to take Hagar as a wife.
I suspect Abram told Sarai about the vision and the promise God made to him after he had rescued Lot. About how God had said that a son coming from your own body will be your heir.
But there was no clue how this would happen, and Sarai took responsibility for the solution. There were tests to undergo, no medical investigations to see if it was Sarai who could not have children or whether it was Abram. So together they agreed to try an alternative therapy… a second wife.
It must have been hard for Sarai to do this, but it seemed to her to be the only way of raising a family and fulfilling the promise. It was a very human thing to do, but since when did God need our help to keep his promises? He asks for our willingness, our obedience our trust, but he is the one who keeps the promise.
And hard as it must have been for Sarai to see Abram go into the tent with Hagar, how much harder must it have been to see Hagar pregnant.
Now it truly was her fault that Abram had no children.
And so her frustration and low self-esteem give way to envy and bitterness. She hates the human solution to her problem and takes it out on Hagar who runs away.
Do you have days when the real problem isn’t the real problem? Do you have moments when personal frustration shows up as anger and bitterness?
Is your present bitterness over one issue expressing itself in anger towards someone or something else?
Perhaps, even more pertinent a question is this: Are you angry with God because you think he hasn’t kept his promise to you and are you taking that anger out on someone else?
How do you wait for God to keep a promise?
1. Patiently
We already know that sometimes it can take a long time to see God’s promise kept. 40 years for Moses to become a leader, 25 years for Abraham to have a son, 750 years for Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus to be fulfilled.
It reminds me of the sign at the golf course I used to play in Lincolnshire: If you don’t like slow play, play somewhere else.
2. Faithfully
If there’s a recurring theme through the stories of Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah, it’s that when people try to hurry along God’s promise, the consequences can be disastrous. Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau.
All the problems they faced were created through a failure simply to be faithful to the God who made the promise.
Lack of patience leads to a failure of faithfulness as we try to keep God’s promises for him.
3. Expectantly
Of course the problem with a long wait is that it dulls our hope and raises our doubt.
Did we hear right? Did God really say? Have we missed something?
It’s okay to ask questions.
4. Graciously
To wait graciously is to wait in God’s hands. It’s to wait in a way that says it doesn’t matter if the promise is kept or not, being in God’s hand is sufficient for me.
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. (2Cor.12:19)
Conclusion
God is the God who keeps a promise. Number 6 reminds us that God is not a man that he should lie. He is faithful to the promises he makes.
The hard part is waiting and trusting and walking in faithfulness.
This is our part. To wait.
God’s part is to fulfil, we do well to remember that.
Let me finish by asking what promise has God to you that you are still waiting for him to fulfil? Because the truth is we are all still waiting for something.
How will you live differently, act differently, believe differently this week because you know that God does not make a promise he can’t or won’t keep?
Will you live patiently? Will you live faithfully?
