Waiting In Faith

By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised.
–Hebrews 11:11

Some years back, when I was serving at another church, an opportunity opened up elsewhere. My wife, Amy, and I were seriously considering whether to go. We tried to keep it quiet, but the congregation found out anyway. One day, a wise woman slipped me a note that I will never forget: “Pastor, remember sometimes it takes more faith to stay in a place than to go to a new place.” We ended up staying at that church for several more years and had a great ministry there.

Faith does not always mean going. Sometimes it means staying where you are–staying in that job, that marriage, or that church. Sometimes it means waiting on God when you cannot hear His voice.

Abraham’s wife, Sarah, is a great illustration of that. Hebrews 11:11-12 says, “By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.”

When Sarah was sixty-five years old, God promised that she and Abraham were going to be the progenitors of a great nation, even though they had no children. Sarah ended up waiting twenty-five years for God to fulfill His promise–and for the first twenty-four years, she waited without hearing His voice. Now, her faith wavered at times. When angelic visitors announced that Sarah would give birth at ninety years old, she laughed at God. Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t judge us by one or two slip-ups in our lives? Even though Sarah had lapses of faith, she believed God.

And what a tremendous thing it was to believe God’s promise! For a woman to have a baby when she is ninety–that would be something for the tabloids right below the latest sighting of Elvis Presley. The writer of Hebrews said Abraham himself was “as good as dead” by that point (v. 12). But Sarah believed God would do what He promised, even though she waited twenty-four years without hearing a word from Him.

Maybe you are waiting on God to do something miraculous in your life. You are waiting on God to turn your child or grandchild’s heart back to the Lord again, or to change the heart of your mate toward you, or to bring healing to yourself or somebody you care about. Faith means believing God will do what He has promised to do and acting accordingly–and sometimes acting accordingly means waiting on God.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Going Without Knowing” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2020.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org