Mote or a Log? Continued from Last Post

Yesterday's post about the power of God referred to the suffering of Abraham and Sarah while they waited 25 years for the child God had first promised to Abraham.

Jesus talked about the difference between a mote in your eye and a log. What is the difference? Whose eye it's in. When it's in someone else's, a mote. When it's in your eye, it's a log. Compassion and empathy are about being able to have a deeper understanding of that truth. The person who has experienced a similar type of suffering will be able to bring that memory and "get it" instantly in ways no one else ever will because they know the pain.

The women who are reading who have struggled, longing or waiting to have a baby will instantly understand what Sarah was feeling, although it was centuries ago. Because I had one daughter die soon after birth, and had a miscarriage 5 months later, I have a really good sense of the intensity of Sarah's feelings of emptiness and loss, even if I didn't have to wait 25 years to have another child. Many women can find ways to identify with her pain.

I think God included her in the narrative in as much detail as he does because he knows that women will identify better with her than with Abraham, and he wants women to get it experientially how much he cares for them by letting them identify with a real person's story. I'm convinced that's why the successes and failures (case histories) of people are so candidly recorded in the Old and New Testament.

In Genesis 20, God gave Sarah a few perks men can't appreciate that are side issues to the story. There is a narrative about the deception of Abraham lying to Abimelech about Sarah being his "sister" (a technicality), Abimelech taking her into his harem, and a huge mess ensuing. God had to keep her safe from being enpregnated by anyone but Abraham to uphold his promise. The reason for the deception? She's a knockout. Abimelech takes one look at her and wants her for his own.

Bottom line: At 89 years old, Sarah's so beautiful, men are smitten with her. She's a hottie. My mother suggested God gave her hormone treatments to get her ready to have a baby, which would rejuvenate her body and face. VaVa Voom. At 89. I think as a woman, God's giving her some compensation for her waiting all those years--a beauty treatment and make-over.

Now, remember Abraham. He was 100. No Viagra in the desert. No matter how great she looked, he was still an old man. God delicately leaves how he handled that part, um, unclear.

And then in Chapter 21, the fulfillment of all Sarah had been waiting for. "Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him."

We can all appreciate the fulfillment of something we've been watiting a terribly long time for. But some of us, who've been aching for something, praying for something, hanging on for it, those people will truly understand what these words meant to Sarah when she finally gave birth to that baby boy at age 90.

To those people, I say, Keep on, dear ones! Take every hour by each hour. You know this, but keep doing it. Keep putting one foot after the other, after the other. You can do that much. God will give you that much strength. God Bless you and strengthen you for this hour and this day. God bring you your Isaac--whatever that is--in the fulness of his time.