“And Sarah said, God hath made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.” (Genesis 21:6)
Can you imagine? We have never in our lifetime ever heard of a 90-year-old woman birthing a child, except in the Bible concerning Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Abraham was also in his old age at 100 years old. It cannot be explained in no other terms but a miracle of God. Only God can take credit for this. In our Scripture of study, Sarah said, “...God hath made me to laugh...” In the original Hebrew, it means that God gave her laughter in pleasure. For twenty-five years they had believed and waited for this child that God promised. And just like we would have done, they tried to second guess God and even got ahead of God and birthed Ishmael through Hagar. Now in their old age, when all hope should have been exhausted, comes God’s miracle.
I think all of us have experienced a miracle from God that came when all hope should have been exhausted. But we kept up our hope to the last minute because we believed in our God, the God of miracles, the God of the impossible, the God Who never fails us. This was the faith and hope of Abraham in God. This is the kind of faith that pleases God. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)
In the second part of our Scripture Sarah said that all who hear would laugh with her. The Hebrew word laugh that Sarah used this time was different from the word she used before. It means that God’s miracle gave her laughter. This laugh is a translation of the word that means to make merriment with her. She laughed in pleasure and all who heard about the miracle laughed in merriment with her. It was a joyous occasion. She had been barren which was considered a curse in those days. Now she was blessed.
After Ishmael was born, Abraham really thought that Ishmael was the promised son. But God spoke to Abraham and told him that he wasn’t. And Abraham laughed, but it was the laughter of merriment to think that Sarah his wife in old age would bear him a son and that the covenant was still valid even though they were both so old. “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” (Genesis 17:15-19)
We do what Abraham did. We try to second-guess God. When we are waiting for a miracle, just sit tight. The enemy will bring ideas into play that are not from God. How do we know? And how can we distinguish that it’s from the enemy, a fictitious and imitation of God’s miracle? It will always be man initiated. When God does a thing it’s God initiated, and God fulfilled. Our anxiousness and impatience will want to jump the gun and get ahead of God. But we must remain patient. Is this easy? No, definitely no! God is merciful and even when we mess up, the Lord is faithful. God fulfilled His promise to Abraham even though he did mess up. And He blessed Ishmael also. “And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.” (Genesis 17:20)
I will give a personal example. When I got lung cancer, not caused by smoking which I don’t, last year, I believed God would heal me completely. And God could have and would have removed that cancer to His glory. But I was impatient. I did not want that cancer to do more damage to my body. I could have waited for God. On the other hand, God has provided doctors and His marvelous knowledge that has been revealed to mankind in technology to remove the cancer. I took the fastest option. It was still a miracle. The cancer was discovered inadvertently because of another problem before it had done any extensive damage. The cancer was able to be removed completely. There was no damage to the lymph nodes, so it hadn’t spread to the rest of my body. A third of my lung was removed, but I am able to breathe and even sing with no problem with the air capacity getting better. And chemo wasn’t even required. So even if I wasn’t able to wait on God, the Lord was still merciful and good to me. That was the level of my faith. The Lord is merciful and knows how weak in faith we are. We may think we’re of great faith, until we see that we’re not. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
Even if we’re impatient, the Lord is faithful. He knows us better than we know ourselves. God kept His promise to Abraham even though he was impatient. The Lord was faithful in His goodness to me, even though I could not wait for God to remove the cancer. The Lord will meet us at the place that we are in our faith. He is faithful to come through with the miracle we need. And He is faithful in spite of our weakness in faith.
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