Skip to main content

Sarah the worm

 Genesis 23:1 Sarah lived to be a hundred and twenty-seven years old. She died at Kiriath Arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her.

Sara does not seem to have much to say during her few Bible appearances. Finally, however, she becomes the mother of the nation of Israel. She is sterile, old, and a doubter. She gives her slave girl to her husband to make a baby and then gets steaming mad when Hagar gets pregnant. She wants to kill her and ends up kicking her out of the house. 

She lies about being Abraham's sister, and when God catches her laughing at his "you're going to have a baby" news. Thus I don't understand the author of Hebrews when he says that Sarah, by faith, was enabled to give birth. To me it seems like a forced faith. She doesn't seem like a model wife or mother. 

That is where we should be REALLY encouraged. We aren't model parents or Christians either, are we? We do stupid stuff and make idiotic mistakes. We say things that we don't mean and are mean when we should be nice. We lie and feel like kicking people out of our lives at times. In all of this mess, God takes our puny faith and allows it to be enough to save us from eternal damnation. 

God saves the worm of a person called you. Aren't you so grateful? 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tottering!

I was watching my one year old grandson, Brandon, today. He had on some baggy little shorts, weird flip-flops over his socks, and he was tottering. It made me think about how I often feel these days. Funny how that when we are little and "innocent" and tottering in our baggy pants, with our little potbelly sticking out from under our t-shirt we look precious. When we are older and tottering in our low slung trousers and the same potbelly, we looks pathetic! I guess that the two drastically opposite points of view are based on the viewer's chronological perspective. Brandon is growing and I'm dying. He is cute because the little guy has a lot to learn and we love to see him progress. The old guy has already had his chance at learning and what he is progressing toward is not quite so much fun to ponder. When I have these weird thoughts I praise my God because He never lets go of my hand whether a tottering little guy or an old one. And I found this verse to prove my po...

What Are You Worth?

What are you Worth?  Have you ever thought about what you are worth? In investing circles there is a term used to gauge this exact question, it's called Net Worth. You take all of your assets, like property owned, funds in your bank account, clothes, jewelry, car, etc.. You total all of these things. You then take everything you owe, like mortgage, car loan, and credit card debt, and you subtract these items from the first total. This gives you your net worth. That number represents where you are financially. Most people never stop to think about this number because they don't understand anything about it. They never have two nickels to rub together. They live from hand to mouth and know (or at least believe) nothing will ever change so, they fall into the "daily grind" mentality. Psalm 49 should be a great encouragement to such as these. The sons of Korah write about them. These sons write about all of us. They call all people everywhere to listen to their wisdom. Bo...

The Missionary Thing

"I wish I could get into this Missionary Thing!" I have heard this statement a number of times during my missionary career. People say it in feigned jest. Especially when they see something special happening to missionaries. Tonight for instance a friend loaned us his brand new Chrysler Sebring. Or how about this one, Someone once gave us $10,000. I think that the "Missionary Thing" statement is a reaction to perceived preferential treatment. Granted, I had never receive $10,000 in a lump sum offering until I became a missionary. I had never had anyone give me a car, house, apartment, computer, airline ticket and myriad other things until I became a missionary.  Being a missionary does have it's definite benefits. One of the biggest of those being that we get to do what Paul did. Paul was able to recount his story to perhaps thousands before his death at the hands of Nero. We are still feeling the after-shock of his message. Paul's is that Christ-like exampl...