Monday, April 27, 2020

Seriously?


Monday, April 27, 2020

The Lord appeared again to Abraham near the oak grove belonging to Mamre.  One day Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest part of the day.  He looked up and noticed three men standing nearby.  When he saw them, he ran to meet them and welcomed them, bowing low to the ground.  “My lord,” he said, “if it pleases you, stop here for a while.  Rest in the shade of this tree while water is brought to wash your feet.  And since you’ve honored your servant with this visit, let me prepare some food to refresh you before you continue on your journey.”  “All right,” they said.  “Do as you have said.”  So Abraham ran back to the tent and said to Sarah, “Hurry!  Get three large measures of your best flour, knead it into dough, and bake some bread.”  Then Abraham ran out to the herd and chose a tender calf and gave it to his servant, who quickly prepared it.  When the food was ready, Abraham took some yogurt and milk and the roasted meat, and he served it to the men.  As they ate, Abraham waited on them in the shade of the trees.  “Where is Sarah, your wife?” the visitors asked.  “She’s inside the tent,” Abraham replied.  Then one of them said, “I will return to you about this time next year, and your wife, Sarah, will have a son!”  Sarah was listening to this conversation from the tent.  Abraham and Sarah were both very old by this time, and Sarah was long past the age of having children.  So she laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?”  Then the Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh?  Why did she say, ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’  Is anything too hard for the Lord?  I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”  Genesis 18:1-14

When the visitor brought the news to 100 year old Abraham and his 90 year old wife Sarah, that they would have a baby, Sarah hardly had a fighting chance to stifle that laugh.  My wife knows that drill.  Sometimes when she hears even bad news she will giggle.  It’s an involuntary response to something unnerving.  For Sarah, sneaking-up on the age when birthday cakes are official fire hazzards, signing up for Lamaze classes and shower gift lists at Macy’s was nothing more than a rear-view-mirror memory.  Seriously?  Not even a hope anymore. 
I was 24 when I found out I was going to be a father.  Elizabeth had planned this big speech surrounded by a romantic dinner if the pregnancy test came back positive.  She’d been thinking about it for the whole 5 years we’d been married.  Unfortunately, I was the one who got the phone call before she got home from work.  When she walked through the door I told her, Doc called…yer gonna gain weight.  (Mr. Romance-killer strikes again!).
Reflecting on that moment of being told I was going to be a father, it was overwhelming; I was still a kid, and what did I know about diapers, teething, and not-breaking a little human?  It was fearful…but, somehow wonderful.  There was so much of that how can this be in my mind that day…and for the last 49 years. 
And yet, there it was.  The news was undeniable in May of ’71…the promise of the doctor’s office became a presence in our every waking moment (which was plenty, considering she didn’t sleep more than two hours at a time!).
It’s a deep thinking process when you begin with is anything too hard for God?  That’s the question Abraham’s visitor posed; there came a time when Sarah stopped laughing the skeptical grunt of human response, and began the joyful laughter of God’s redeemed people. 
God’s always been into miracle births…a 90 year old woman, who’d doubtless tried countless times to have a baby and couldn’t, and then gave up the idea or hope.  And what about the teenager who’d never tried to have a baby, and then had one like none other, and laid him in a manger?  And talk about births…how about that one where all hope lay buried in a borrowed tomb…where life was well-past the expiration date…when a dead man gets up and walks out of a grave, you have a really new birth to talk about then!
For You Today
It’s wise to remember that when hope is long past, and even the thought that you could ever begin to hope again, the visitor’s question is always going to rule the day:  Is anything too hard for God?
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day! 
Title Image:  Pixabay.com      Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

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