“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 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 appreciated Sarah’s laugh and faith-struggle story. It helps me be honest about my seasons of semi-belief, barely-believe, and disbelief. But the focus in your Word is always on your great faithfulness, not our great anything. The only real hero in the entire Bible is Jesus, in whom all your promises find their “Yes!“ (2Cor.1:20).
Faith is more like an empty hand than a bulging bicep. It’s the focus of our faith, not the size of our faith, that matters the most. As we trust Jesus, he often changes our original ask to something better. And so, we come to you today with …
Our Sarah-like laugh—owning our unbelief about impossible people, messy situations, and hard stories.
Our Jonah-like anger—miffed that you do things that shock our sensibilities, like loving and blessing our enemies.
Our Martha-like blame—stuck in the past, assuming we were right, and you don’t really care: “If only you’d been here, Lord” (Jn.11:21).
Our Habakkuk-like confusion—numb and reeling that you sometimes let really bad things happen through really bad people (Hal.1:1-4).
Our Older Brother-like self-righteousness—offended you lavish mercy and grace on people we want you to “teach a lesson.”
But the key thing is, Abba, we come, and we’ll keep coming to you. Like Sarah, we also believe you are faithful—even when we don’t understand your ways, like your choices, or agree with timetable. Because you’ve given us Jesus, we know a Day is coming when we’ll shout, “Our God has done all things well.” So Very Amen.