“God also said to Abraham,
‘As for Sarai your wife,
you are no longer to call her Sarai;
her name will be Sarah.”
Genesis 17:15
“Note God chose to announce the name change and blessings concerning Sarai to Abraham rather than directly to her. God’s revelation to Hagar (Gen. 16) dismisses the idea that He preferred not to speak to women. (Thank goodness.)
Likewise, I don’t believe God was avoiding Sarai to punish her for foolish decisions. Goodness knows Abraham had made plenty. God may have wanted Abraham himself to view Sarah as blessed, changing how Abraham – as her husband – identified her.
Possibly Abraham thought Sarai was the obstacle to the fulfillment of God’s promises. Obviously, Ishmael proved Abraham still had the ability to sire a son in the years immediately following the promises. Sarai was the holdup.
Whether or not Abraham consciously deducted such, his attitude suggests that he believed Sarah’s barrenness was more powerful than God’s promises. That’s why he kept suggesting other ways of helping God fulfill His promise, not the least of which is found in Genesis 17:18, ‘If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!’
In his wildest imagination, Abraham did not think God could use Sarai.
She was, after all, unfruitful.
Unable.
Unusable.
That very well may be why God spoke Sarai’s blessing into Abraham’s own ears. Abraham needed to stop seeing his wife as the hang-up and start seeing her as the ‘how.’ We…so often encumber ourselves with similar thinking.
We think to ourselves ___________________ is the reason why God is not freed up to work in my life. His or her unbelief, unresponsiveness, unhealthiness, unawareness is the problem….uneducated, unyielding, uncooperative…God can’t fulfill His promises to me because of my pastor’s, my employer’s, my children’s, my parents’, or my spouse’s ‘uns.’
Yep, everybody else’s ‘uns’ are my problem.
Atomic uns.
So powerful they break God’s promises.
What if I told you that at one time I believed my husband Keith’s ‘uns’ would surely nullify the fulfillment of God’s calling over my life? Would you like to know how the situation turned out?
God has used virtually nothing as powerfully as Keith’s ‘uns’ to mold and shape me into a more humble, pliable woman. In a strange sort of way, like Sarai the impossible vessel, Keith the impossible vessel also became God’s miraculous ‘how.’
After God conceived His plan in my life, He began the glorious undoing of countless ‘uns.’ Nothing has made me appreciate what God has done any more than the sheer impossibility of such glorious works.
Who or what do you tend to believe holds up God’s full blessing to you?
Beloved, you may very well have just come face-to-face with your Sarai.
Your holdup may well turn into your how.”
The Patriarchs: Encountering the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, pgs. 46-47