Sarah: Waiting for God’s PromiseNäide

“As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her” (Genesis 17:15-16).

Now, the promise of a son doesn’t seem like a big deal unless you take into account the potential parents’ ages. By then, both Sarah and Abraham were advanced in years (Sarah was 90), neither of them still in the normal childbearing years. So this promise from God simply didn’t fit the facts of their lives. What He’d promised wasn’t practical. Not only was Sarah old, but she’d also been barren her entire life. She’d never conceived or given birth to a child. Her physical capacity to do so was absent, and time was no longer on her side.

It’s possible that Sarah’s story resembles your own but in a different way. You could be barren in other forms. Your capacity to experience what God has for you just doesn’t seem to be there. It’s not working out. You’re not producing what you thought you would be at this stage in your life. You’re not delivering on the destiny you believed to be yours. You’ve heard Jesus’ promise in John 10:10, when He declared, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” But you don’t see the results of that promise in your everyday life.

If that’s you, you may be stuck in emotions of disappointment, despair, and hopelessness. But, like Sarah, if you are patient, you will receive God’s promise.

What promise are you holding onto that requires patience?