We are blessed enough
Perhaps the best part of Sarah is that she could name and share her blessings long before she learns she and her husband Abraham will be having a long-awaited child.
For anyone unfamiliar with the story of this couple, the Book of Genesis records this twosome as painstakingly childless in a culture age where children were not just expected, but your offspring measured your worth, value, and identity. To be without children at this time in history meant God didn’t show His favor upon you.
It’s likely Sarah didn’t have the best relationship with God during the years she could have had a baby. Scripture doesn’t reveal this directly, but I suspect this because Sarah does not treat Hagar, her slave and handmaiden, with love. Even though Hagar brought trouble to this relationship in that she treated Sarah with contempt, Sarah doesn’t show she’s a woman of God at this time in her life because she isn’t loving to Hagar. She is cruel.
To understand Sarah and Hagar’s complex relationship, we need to remember God had promised Abraham countless descendants. Ten years after this promise, however, Sarai (which is the name she is known as before she becomes Sarah) remains barren. On the verge of becoming too old to have children, Sarah chooses to give her servant Hagar to Abraham. This is in keeping with the cultural custom of the day. Sarah could have a child through Hagar (Genesis 16:2).
This surrogate pregnancy plan reveals Sarah as fearful, willful, and impatient.
God does right this wrong course of action and reveals to Hagar that her son will become the father of his own nation, but Sarah came up with this plan for Hagar’s pregnancy on her own. She doesn’t turn to God for direction.
It can be argued that God willed Hagar’s mistreatment to happen. It may have been His plan to create such great friction between Sarah and Hagar so that Hagar’s son, Ismael, would enter history.
This could also be God’s way of showing us that Sarah is immature in her relationship with God at this point. Beautifully, this changes.
I lean to this second idea because it teaches us that we all have growing to do when it comes to God’s plan in our lives. Again, God did promise Abraham that he’d father his very own nation. Sarah is impatient. We can’t fault her. After all, her normal child bearing years are passing. But God is showing us who God is not only in Sarah’s life, but also in ours. What rises in this story is this: our God is a God of plenty. Our God keeps His word. Our God does, in fact, deliver.
Babies and deliver. Is there a pun here?
Sarah had years to live with what she had done to Hagar. In those years, I believe she comes to know the same God we can know, a God of redemption, forgiveness, and grace.
Before she becomes pregnant, Sarah realizes she has enough—she is blessed enough—because she knows the joy of the Lord’s redemption, forgiveness, and grace firsthand. All this childless woman needs to complete her is her relationship with God.
Anyone a quarter of Sarah’s age has experienced great and deep loss. Yet with Sarah who encourages us to laugh (Genesis 21:6b), we can realize we have enough blessings too. As Sarah had the promise that her husband would father the nation of Israel, we have the fact that Jesus will save us from ourselves and enable us a life with him forever. It took time for Sarah to live into this blessing. It takes us time to understand that what Jesus did on the cross is our blessing.
This is all the blessing we truly need.
I believe Sarah knew, named and shared her blessings. It was only after this deeply-seated realization (and her sharing of them) that she becomes pregnant.
This is where I hear God’s divine plan. He works through our misgivings and our distrust. Through our fears of His provisions, He teaches us patience.
Some of us ache for a child. Some of us grieve a child who has passed. And all of us, like Sarah, can come to know through our less than perfect moments that God’s love is enough.
His love is enough. His promise to us is beyond measure.
And we are blessed in this.
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