At the beginning of this year, I went to a conference in Orlando and heard a speaker named Alan Fadling, who described how to live what he calls an “unhurried life.” I sat mesmerized as Fadling took apart Biblical texts and opened them up in ways that made me see sabbath rest differently than I ever had up to that point. I came away convicted that much of my life had a sense of hurried impatience to it.
And as Fadling points out, it’s a version of impatient hurry that drives Abram and Sarai to orchestrate a childbirth. As Abram and Sarai are quickly reminded, though, God does not need help keeping His promises.
For Sarai, her shame is clear. In a culture in which a woman’s worth was 100% tied to her ability to bear children, Sarai places her value on her womb and not her Lord.
That said, as we are told in verse 3, she has waited 10 years. This is not Sarai complaining about her fast food order, as some commentaries have made it seem like. From the sound of things, it hasn’t been the most enjoyable decade, but regardless, you can understand and likely relate to her decision to try to take control of things. And here is where things spiral for Sarai.
She first blames God for her misfortune, making the cringe-worthy statement: “The Lord has kept me from having children.” And when the consequences of her own faulty plan bring dissatisfaction, she then shifts the blame to her husband Abram.
If you look at this scene objectively, though, you can’t help but feel some sympathy for Sarai. Now in their 70s and 80s, Abram and Sarai consider themselves too old for kids, and they see the fulfillment of God’s promise as impossible. Month after month pass, and it’s disappointment after disappointment for her. Any family who has had a struggle with infertility probably understands the pain Sarai felt--and can maybe defend her bitterness better than a 42-year-old male like me. So they decide to do the socially acceptable and common thing: a surrogate adoption.
In reality, compared to our microwave society, Abram and Sarai are patient. Because let’s be honest: How often do we wait a decade for God to show up? I’ll admit that my unanswered prayers often get deserted after a certain amount of time. Yet despite our own stories of unbelief, it’s still tempting to fault Abram and Sarai for taking matters into their own hands because our advantage as the readers of their account, of course, is that we can see their whole story.
So why is patience so hard for us? We are going, going, going. A God for whom a day is a thousand years is not in a hurry, so why are we? (2 Peter 3:8)
We got a glimpse of unhurried living during the covid-quarantine, which was an odd combination of enjoying a slower pace mixed with feeling restricted and cooped up. Many people felt disconnected from society, but fully connected to their family and God.
The goal, of course, is to be connected to both, as the Bible calls us to. But how? Are we willing to be patient and wait on God to move?
Jesus, remember, waited 30 years and then an extra 40 days. Moses stood before Pharaoh ten times before his people were let go. Israel marched around Jericho seven times before the walls came down. Joseph sat in jail year after year.
God seems to work through a process. What process does He have you in?
I was recently watching a video about Eugene Peterson, the late pastor who is most known for writing the Message translation of the Bible. And he shared a story of watching a kingfisher bird perch on a branch over a lake and take dives at catching fish. Peterson got curious about the kingfisher’s effectiveness, so he started counting the dives it took for the bird to catch his first fish. It took 37 dives. And this is from the bird we have named the king fisher.
We have all sorts of ways to measure our success these days. Analytics is the new efficiency, and 0-37 isn’t a very good statistic. But God doesn’t seem very keen on analytics.
Think about your own personal evangelism and how we tend to base our success as an evangelist on our conversion rate rather than our sharing rate. Evangelism isn’t hearing “yes”; it’s proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and offering that invitation to others, so your evangelism is not wasted when you hear “no.”
What impossibility are you confronted with right now? What no’s have you heard over and over? Has it been long enough that you’re beginning to wonder whether God will come through, whether he’ll be faithful to his promises?
If so, trust that God will send his holy spirit on that 38th conversation. Because 38, 59, 156 no’s in a row, that’s when it gets hard.
But if we take Scripture seriously, we see that’s when God has us where He wants us.