Is Anything Too Hard for the LORD?

Letters from the King (Nov 2024)

“Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.”

(Genesis 21:1-2 NIV)

There is so much to unpack in this single verse, but we can’t fully appreciate it unless we situate it within its literary context.

If you want to marvel at how many times God circumvented Abraham and Sarah’s mistakes to fulfill His promises to them, pour yourself a cup of tea, curl up under a cozy blanket, and read Genesis 12-21 in its fullness.

Or, if you’d prefer a summarized version of the story, you can read my Coles notes here:

1. God was gracious to Sarah despite her skepticism.

In Genesis 18, a year before their son Isaac was born, Abraham and Sarah received a visit from three heavenly strangers. (Though scholars debate who exactly these divine visitors were, many believe them to be the LORD and two angels.)¹ During the visit, the LORD told Abraham, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”²

Sarah, who was eavesdropping on the conversation, threw back her head and laughed. “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?” she wondered.³

Personally, I don’t blame Sarah for her skepticism. The woman was eighty-nine years old at this point, and it had been twenty-four years since God first promised to make Abraham into a great nation.⁴

But God did not let Sarah’s skepticism go unnoticed. He heard her laughing and openly addressed her doubt.

“Why did Sarah laugh?” He asked Abraham. “Is anything too hard for the LORD?”⁵

2. God was gracious to Sarah despite her moral failure.

Perhaps Sarah’s incredulity sprang in part from the memory of her past mistakes.

After ten years of waiting on God’s promise and no miracle baby in her arms, Sarah (then named “Sarai”) reached a breaking point.

“The LORD has kept me from having children,” she lamented to Abram. “Go, sleep with my slave [Hagar]; perhaps I can build a family through her.”⁶

Note Sarai’s reasoning here: “perhaps I can build a family through her.”

Translation: “God hasn’t come through for me yet, so I need to take matters into my own hands.”

Oof . . .

And yet, how many of us have found ourselves in a similar state of desperation?

The sad irony of this whole mess is that Sarai’s attempt to take control of the situation only made matters worse.

Instead of “building” a family through Hagar, Sarai watched everything fall apart before her very eyes.

Once Hagar discovered she was pregnant, she despised Sarai.⁷

Yes, Abraham now had a son—but it wasn’t her son.

Sarai had “given” Abraham an heir, but she was still childless.

Sarai robbed herself of the very thing her heart craved most—what God longed and promised to give her if only she would wait on His timing.

How often, in our impatience, do we snatch at something less than what we long for simply because we’re weary of waiting?

The Sarai/Hagar story is a messy one that we’ll unpack further in two weeks, but for now, let me leave you with this:

Despite Abram and Sarai’s attempts to force God’s hand, the LORD refused to bless Ishmael (Hagar’s son) as the child of promise because His covenant was not only for Abram. It was for Sarai, too.

God not only promised to make Abram “the father of many nations.”⁸ He also promised to make Sarai “the mother of many nations.”⁹

God included both Abraham and Sarah in the divine blessing so both of them would know that nothing is too hard for the LORD.

3. God was gracious to Sarah despite Abraham’s cowardice.

Christian tradition rightly celebrates Abraham for his radical faith, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t moments when he failed miserably.

Not only did Abraham disobey God in his treatment of Hagar (again, we’ll explore that more in two weeks), but he also put Sarah in jeopardy—twice.

Shortly after Abram and Sarai settled in Canaan in Genesis 12, a famine ravaged the land and the couple sought refuge in Egypt.

While there, Abram instructed Sarai to tell everyone she was his sister, for she was a beautiful woman and he feared that the Egyptians would kill him if they knew she was his wife.¹⁰

Sure enough, Pharaoh himself became enraptured with Sarai and took her into his palace. He “treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.”¹¹

Except God didn’t take too kindly to this little scheme, so He “inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.”¹²

Pharaoh, understandably freaked out, returned Sarai to Abram and sent them on their way.

But you know what the worst part is?

Abraham pulled the exact same stunt again in Genesis 20 when he and Sarah moved to the region of Negev, ruled by Abimelek king of Gerar.¹³ And this was AFTER the theophany in Genesis 18 when God promised that Sarah would give birth to a son within the next year!!!

Abraham’s cowardice and utter disregard for Sarah’s safety makes me want to pull my hair out, but it also highlights how much Isaac’s miraculous birth had nothing to do with Abraham and Sarah’s moral virtue and everything to do with God’s grace.

As Beth and Melissa Moore point out in their commentary on this passage, the circumstances surrounding Isaac’s birth repeatedly highlight God’s divine intervention and covenant faithfulness.¹⁴

Oh yes, God was gracious to Sarah.

He was gracious to Sarah despite her doubts and fears.

He remained faithful to her despite her mistakes and failures.

He protected her even when Abraham put her life—and the divine promise—in jeopardy.

Why?

Because God is true to his word even when we are not, and he goes out of his way to prove that nothing—absolutely nothing—is too hard for the LORD.

Photo by Loume Visser on Unsplash

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