My backyard garden is an unrealized dream. A few months ago we sowed and scattered seeds with the haphazard helping hands of my four-year-old daughter. Despite multiple warnings not to do so, she dumped an entire container of bird seed alongside my hoped-for flowers. In addition, the sod we ripped up to make room for the garden left rows of roots that like to pop up, and no matter how many times I rip them out, they always seem to show up again.
Now I cannot tell weeds from future blooms, and the hours I spent trying to cultivate a beautiful cut-flower garden seem fruitless (or, flowerless). I know that eventually, the real flowers will bloom, and then I can root out the weeds that have grown.
Sarah’s life was marked by a root of bitterness, a weed that made her scoff at God’s promise and treat Hagar with contempt and cruelty. Bitterness was born out of her perceived injustice: her husband fathering a son with her slave (Genesis 21:9–10), her own inability to have children (11:30), and the seemingly-impossible promise God made to her (18:10).
If you told me today that in two months, my garden would be bursting with zinnias, peonies, snapdragons, and gardenias, I would probably laugh. My track record, like Sarah’s in childbearing, is sparse. I have nothing on which to base my hope of a bountiful flower harvest.
What did Sarah have to fight back against her bitterness? She had a promise, a word spoken by the Author of promises. But still, she laughed.
Thankfully, the fulfillment of God’s promise to Sarah did not rest on her. God did not bless her with a son, Isaac, because of her attitude. It was not a reward based on piety, or character, or anything other than His word. And His word is always good, no matter the shape and bent of our hearts.
Bitterness has deep roots in my own heart, and daily I have to push against its influence. I think, You deserve this. You’ve earned it. And then I compare my circumstances to someone else’s, reasoning, What has she done to get that thing (job, house, vacation, experience, complexion)? I am just as worthy!
The problem with this false narrative is this: not only is it deeply baked in privilege, but it feeds into the merit-based culture we live in. Entitlement begets merit, which begets more entitlement, and so on. The culture of God’s kingdom is anchored neither in merit nor in entitlement, but rather in the goodness and faithfulness of God.
Sarah had neither merit nor entitlement. She seemed to have bitterness where faithfulness should grow. But what she did have was the promise, and so she became the mother of the promise by God’s grace alone.
On bitterness, poet and hymn writer Anne Ross Cousin said this in her poem, “In Immanuel’s Land”:
Soon shall the cup of glory
Wash down earth’s bitterest woes,
Soon shall the desert briar,
Break in to Eden’s rose
…
I stand upon His merit,
I know no other stand
Not e’en where glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.
The things I long for are chaff and weeds, distractions from the best promise ever made: the eternal presence of the Lord Himself. Like Sarah, I have no merit to cling to as I wait for the fulfillment of God’s promises. But I have Him, and His Word, and His merit alone.
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56 thoughts on "Sarah"
I’m blessed simply by reading everyone’s posts. I have a question and would appreciate feedback – v18 states the wombs of the women in Abimelech were closed on account of Sarah. Why? Was it bc of her bitterness and disbelief?
I think it would have been because God was protecting Sarah even when Abraham would not, since Abimelech seemed to have the intent of taking Sarah as his own wife/concubine/or whatever else was acceptable to him. So God closed the wombs of his people until this wrong was made right. I wonder if God had Abraham pray this prayer so that he might see the severe consequences of his passive actions?
Wondering the timeline of this also? If he closed the wombs was Sarah with him for an extended period of time?
That’s what I was wondering as well. It had to be. She was obviously still a very beautiful woman at 90 to be desired by the king.
I’m just grateful that God is faithful even when we are not!
Amen!
I was thinking the same thing! Abraham and Sarah did some things that make me squirm and think think they were not very nice people! To be abusive towards a servant girl who you forced to sleep with your husband! Ugh! But sometimes I do sinful, ugly things too. Thankful that God uses us despite ourselves and our imperfections and sinfulness for His glory!
Thanks you Churchmouse……” Today I’m praying that I get out of His way, that I repent of my poor choices and bad attitudes and that I acknowledge His sovereignty over my way too human life. May He use me, this imperfect vessel, for His purpose, to His glory. Amen”.
“The culture of God’s kingdom is not anchored in merit or entitlement, but rather in the goodness and faithfulness of God.” This was so poignant to me this morning and a perspective that I need to be reminded of daily. My place in the kingdom has nothing to do with me and my achievements, but rather is all about Him and His love and grace. Amen!
So well said!
“The culture of God’s kingdom is anchored neither in merit nor in entitlement, but in the
In reading additional commentaries on this story, I came across this point that resonated strongly with me as I can think of many times when I have laughed at a notion that God calls me to. Help me in my times of disbelief dear God and may I cling to your promises and goodness always.
“Whether we laugh out loud or in our hearts, God always hears us. The LORD promised Abraham a son through his wife Sarah, and despite their disbelief, God did not break His promise. People are free to believe or not believe, but God’s plans never change.” (from Liz Kanoy in Crosswalk)
I love that last line!
Had I lived next door to Abraham and Sarah, I’m not sure I would have liked them very much. Abraham’s use of Hagar (yes, use because I wouldn’t call it a relationship). His apparent affection for Ishmael, yet rejection of him and his mother. His lying/deception about his marital status to Abimelech to save his own skin. Sarah’s lying about something so trivial as a chuckle. Her despicable jealousy and treatment of Hagar and Ishmael. In my mind, Abraham and Sarah are not very nice people.
BUT GOD had plans and a promise for them and their descendants and that was very good. The Bible provides these accounts with great specificity, leaving out none of the human failings along the way. This gives me hope. God can use me in spite of myself. He knows that I tend to scoff, to disbelieve, to promote myself, to take matters into my own hands, to overreact, to be jealous. I can be a not nice person. BUT GOD can and will still work through me to accomplish His purpose and fulfill His plan. We imperfect humans are the vessels He chooses. Not because we are good but because we are who He has. Today I’m praying that I get out of His way, that I repent of my poor choices and bad attitudes and that I acknowledge His sovereignty over my way too human life. May He use me, this imperfect vessel, for His purpose, to His glory. Amen.
I love this take on it. Some days all I can see are my flaws so to really look at the people in this text and see how despite their flaws they had a place truly does give me hopw
So grateful that God’s word provides these accounts of sinful, disobedient, in desperate need of a Savior people. Otherwise, how would I ever relate to them.
Well said Churchmouse
So appreciate what you add!
Well said, amen! God uses the broken / imperfect. He doesn’t care about our attitudes but this is a wake up call to try and check myself simply out of respect for the great God we serve. His word is proven true regardless of what we do!
Amen!
I agree wholeheartedly. I too have doubted, lied, and been unkind to others, but this study of Sarah reminds me that we don’t earn a place in God’s plans – he chooses us irregardless of merit.