“Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”” (Gen.18:11). “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” (Heb.11:11).
Heavenly Father, I’ve always loved Sarah’s laugh and faith-struggle story. It helps me be honest about my seasons of disbelief, under-believing, and out and out self-protective not-believing. Sometimes it’s easier not to ask and trust you for something, than to ask and trust only to be disappointed again. Sometimes I choose numbness over feeling—that’s a confession not a boast.
But the focus in your Word is always on your great faithfulness, not our great anything—except the greatness of our need. The only real hero in your story is Jesus, in whom all your promises find their “Yes!“ (2Cor.1:20). We are so grateful this is true. Faith has more in common with an empty hand than a bulging bicep.
And so we come to you today with our Sarah-like laugh—owning our unbelief about impossible situations. We come with our Jonah-like anger—miffed that you do things we’d rather you not do, like blessing our enemies. We bring our Martha-like blame—not looking ahead for anything, just stuck in the past. “If only you’d been here, Lord” (Jn.11:21). We bring our Habakkuk-like confusion over how you let really bad things happen to your people through really bad people (Hal.1:1-4). We bring you our current rendition of the most asked question in the Bible, “How long, O Lord?”
But the key thing is, Abba, we come—no matter our GPS setting, emotional state, faith condition, we come. Because, like Sarah, we too believe you are faithful, even when we don’t understand or like your how’s, why’s, or timetable. Since it’s all about Jesus, we know a Day is coming when we’ll humbly, loudly shout, “Our God has done all things well.” So Very Amen.