Why Did Sarah Laugh?
John Schmidt
11/27/01
Gen 18: 13 And the LORD said unto Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old? 14 Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.
Why did Sarah laugh? Sardonic laughter is our most secret
response to many of God’s promises. We
say within our hearts “if only it were true”.
Our hearts yearn that it might be true – whatever He has promised – but
our minds tell us that it is impossible.
We walk in unbelief, even when God has manifested Himself in our lives
over and over. We have in us an ‘evil
heart of unbelief in ever departing from the Living God’. It is something to plan for in the life of a
believer, and to be constantly beseeching God for grace to overcome. “Lord, I believe, help thou mine
unbelief’. This must be the prayer of
the seasoned believer as well as the tenderest babe in Christ.
Why did Sarah laugh? We laugh because we have given up. The yearning for God’s actions in our lives, if not fulfilled in a heart, over time creates a spiritual callous. It hardens areas of desire that God has naturally prepared. For we must be aware that God puts desires into our Heart for fellowship and blessing from Him. It is His gracious wooing process. We often dream the dreams of God. She laughed because she was hardened. God graciously confronted her unbelief. There will be a day when we stand before the Lord, and perhaps try to deny some thing we have done. And He will reply “Nay, but you did laugh”, for He knows. Is this not a warning to us to go back to the Lord now and humbly submit to Him, and confess that we have been unbelieving? Will He not graciously forgive and restore us? His mercies are new every morning. Lam 3:22, 23 How good He is to those who come to Him humbly. Will you now come into His presence and humbly confess your own unbelief and hardness of heart? Will you now accept His forgiveness and allow Him to restore your confidence in Him, and let Him revive your Joy? Ps 51:12
Why did Sarah laugh? God is always calling us to do the impossible. Not because He wants to frustrate or confuse us. Never! It is because He is urging us to see in Him alone the answer to our most cherished dreams. God is the one who put the desire into Sarah’s heart for a child, by His promise that Abraham’s seed would be the heir of promise. It was not a bad thing to desire! He was the Author of that hope! She believed in God’s promise, but not in God’s ability to pull it off in the face of her and Abraham’s old age. So she conspired with Abraham to create that heir by his or her own means when she urged him, in unbelief, to go in unto Hagar. What a disaster issued from Hagar’s womb! The works of the flesh produces death and disaster. Even to this day. We must see that God both creates the good desires in our hearts, and is fully capable of doing what He has urged upon us. But it can come to pass only if we lean wholly on Him to perform that which He has promised. Without faith it is impossible to please God, or to receive anything from Him. Delight thyself in the Lord, and He will give thee the desires of thy heart.
Why did Sarah laugh? She was double-minded: wanting to believe God, but unwilling to credit God with the ability to perform it. Let not that person think that he or she shall receive anything of the Lord. Double mindedness is a spiritual dead end street. You will not receive God’s blessing or answers to prayer if you will not release your faith to Him. You must rely upon Him and release your request to him, thanking Him. If you find that hard, fill your mind with His promises and ask Him to fill your mind with confidence in Him. Beg Him, in the solitude of your Early Morning Prayer time, to transform you and your walk so that He may bless you. Pray the prayer of Jabez every day, and yield yourself to Him for His choice in the blessings you need. Will you do that now? Bow your head and cry out to Him to bless you and make you able to trust Him.
Why did Sarah laugh? She had no cause to laugh when seen from the perspective of a God for whom nothing is impossible. Let your heart now say “Yes, Lord, Oh thank You, that nothing is too hard for You!” Yes, we all know that Sarah was past age. So what? Didn’t God make the body, and the womb? Is He not the master of His creation? Are you resisting the promises of God because you can’t see how He is going to do it? Who ever told you that you have to understand how God is able to do the miraculous? Who is God, and who are you? Recognize this error for what it is: pride and arrogance. Renounce it now, and cry out to God for His supernatural working in your life from this day forward as you trust Him to work out His will in your life by His miraculous power.
Sarah was missing the best that God has for us in this life, not just the life to come. He is able to do ‘exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think’. After asking, we need to wait and watch for the answer. We can begin thanking Him for the answer even before it becomes apparent. She and we need to begin walking in the sweetness of His answers by faith. Enjoy Him! Enjoy His loving hand in your life! Revel in His love, for it is marvelous! No good thing will He with hold from any of us who walk uprightly. If your life is filled with the ordinary and the natural and the possible, then your life as a spiritual Christian is a total failure. The normal life of one who is led by the Spirit should be filled with the extraordinary and the supernatural and the impossible! The Lord graciously reminded her and you and I: Is anything too hard for the Lord? No, thank you Father, nothing is too hard for you! We love you, and yield to you now in humble submission to your will, and look for opportunities that you have presented to us to believe you for ‘Great and Mighty things, which we know not’.
Stop laughing Sarah, and Rejoice in Him who doeth all things
well!