“Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations.
God on His own prompting had given a promise to Abraham earlier on but just like you or me, Sarah and Abraham may have thought, “God doesn’t understand our circumstances; his commandments are good guidelines, but they simply don’t work when it comes to the nitty-gritty of life.” And so the couple decided to ‘fulfil the promise’ by their method. And so Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.
Yet the promise had been that Sarah would be the one to deliver a son for Abraham; and in the agenda nothing has been fulfilled and so the wait continued, long after reaching the point of desperate frustration, the place where you say, “God, I can’t go on any longer!”
Have you been there like the widow knocking on the judge’s door?
You pray day and night but it’s like heaven upon you is closed and the door remains shut (Luke 18). Sarah and Abraham knocked on that door for another fourteen years! (Genesis 16:16; Genesis 21:5).
While Abraham and Sarah waited, God made a covenant with Abram, changing his name to Abraham, which means “father of many.” And he changed Sarai’s name to Sarah, saying she would be the mother of nations and among her off-spring would be kings (Genesis 17: 15-16).
Then God sent three mysterious visitors to tell Abraham that Sarah would provide him a son within the year. Sarah laughed, not believing God was about to give birth to his promise (Genesis 18). This time around, they were totally and wholly dependent upon God to fulfill his promise. Not dependent because they’d obediently submitted everything to God, but totally dependent because they’d exhausted every other possibility.
And that’s often why God delays. He’s waiting on us to be ready for him. God opened Sarah’s womb so she could bear Abraham a son in his old age, at the time appointed by God (Genesis 21:2).
There is nothing you need that God can’t provide. You don’t know what you’re going to need the rest of this year and the rest of your days. But whatever it is, God has the power to supply it. The Bible says this in Philippians 4:19: “My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”
God has unlimited resources, He is waiting for you to ask Him.