The Waiting is the hardest Part

By Jon Walker
"Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children . . . so she said to Abram, 'The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.' Abram agreed to what Sarai said" (Genesis 16:1–2 NIV).

And so Sarai took it upon herself to solve God's problem. After all, God told Sarai's husband, Abram, that he'd have a huge family, more descendants than there are stars in the sky (Genesis 15).

Sarai waited and waited for God to provide their first descendant, to answer her prayers, to make good on his promise--but the baby didn't come. Every day, the tension and the frustration mounted. As that great theologian and musician, Tom Petty, sings: "The waiting is the hardest part."

Like me--perhaps like you--Sarai began to wonder if God would ever answer her prayers or if he had forgotten about her. Perhaps--like you, like me--Sarai questioned whether God really knew what he was doing.

It appears Sarai's thoughts walked as far as her faith would carry her until she stood looking at the mountains of her fear. Did God understand how important this was to her? How could God deny her the greatest desire of her heart? Was God even on her side?

Even as Sarai acknowledged God's ability to fulfill the promise--"The LORD has kept me from having any children . . . "--she denied God's sovereignty to decide when the promise would be fulfilled.

If we could ask Sarai, "Can God?" she most likely would answer "Yes." If we then asked Sarai, "Will God?" her honest answer may have been "No."

When faced with a delayed answer, do you break with God? What does manipulating an answer to our prayers say about our belief in God's character?

Cont'd -

And so Sarai took it upon herself to fulfill the promise, no longer trusting God to do his job. The waiting is the hardest part, and Sarai was tired of the wait.

Sitting in a humid tent, she heard the support poles creak; she heard, through the open flaps, a camel snort; and she heard . . . was that a voice, like the hiss of a serpent, saying, "Did God really say your husband would be the father of a family so vast it would surpass the number of stars in the sky?" (Consider Genesis 3).

Perhaps Sarai said, "God can, but he won't." Or maybe she said, "God can't figure this out, but I can." Looking through the tent's door, she saw her servant Hagar, and in that moment she saw the solution, though she didn't see the Pandora's box she would soon open. Perhaps she even thought, "Of course! This is probably the answer God meant for me to see all along."

Sarai believed her assumptions more than she believed God's promise. She wondered why God was no longer on her side--"Why is the LORD keeping this from me?"--instead of confessing she was no longer one with God's will.

Ask God to help you identify the places in your life where you're saying, "The LORD is keeping this from me!" God's interest is that you master the lessons of faith. He wants you to succeed, able to walk further in faith each day. So failure is not defeat; he will continue to teach you--and stretch you--until walking by faith and not by sight is as natural as breathing. Tell God, "I believe; help my unbelief!"