All About Love - Relating with Women of the Bible – Part 2預覽

SARAH – LOVE THROUGH FAITHFULNESS

For a type A personality like me, always in control, always deciding, always right, the hardest thing for me to learn was submission. Yet, I was able to go with my husband to the land ‘God would show us’ as missionaries and completely trust God’s leading and promises by faith, like Sarah.

Sarah is every woman in a package. Her name means “princess” and justifiably so, her remarkable beauty would earn her and her husband privileges. Abraham witnessed how at age sixty-five, powerful men would still want Sarah for a wife – first a pharaoh, then a king - forcing both of them to live a lie. Sarah is a classic prima donna – she’s cantankerous, manipulative, jealous and a nag. She was weak but had faith; she was bitter but laughed; she had faults but was blessed.

We can find many flaws in Sarah’s demeanor. But wasn’t her spitefulness understandable because she loved her shared husband? Wasn’t her speaking of half-truths reasonable because of fear of death? Wasn’t her doubt of having a child justifiable because of old age? And wasn’t her callousness defensible when her son was being scoffed?

Yet, despite all these, her faithfulness also proved God’s faithfulness. Sarah is a role model of a wife totally submitted to her husband and to God. She didn’t argue when God called Abraham to the unknown and became a nomad, but she went willingly for Abraham. We don’t see Sarah protest over the decision to sacrifice their son either. No wonder Abraham lamented this lovable woman’s death! And God would honor her immovable faith to conceive a child when she was past age because she judged Him faithful.

Sarah is an example of God’s triumph over human deadness. God proved nothing is too difficult for Him. To overcome physical barrenness is perhaps, the least difficult for the Almighty Creator. But to overcome the depravity of her spirit, to turn her bitterness to laughter, and to affirm her harshness because hers was the true heir of promise are signets of God’s love in action and victorious right hand at work in her life.

And the same victory is ours over the barrenness of our soul and spirit. Because Sarah understood that the promised blessing had eternal implications, we can thank God for Sarah through whom our Savior descended. God remains faithful and loves us through Christ. Have you put your faith in Him, yet?