The next woman I would like to write about reminds me of my DD. She and her brother are what I term “the microwave generation”….they don’t have any concept what it is like to wait for anything. I hear from her more times than I really want to the phrase, “I can’t wait that long! It’s too long!” I can imagine that was a key phrase that God heard from Sarai as well.

The book of Genesis gives us an insight on this woman of faith. She was married to a man named Abram and she was barren. She had no children. She and Abram lived in Haran until her husband got a call from the Lord to leave his homeland and to travel to Canaan, where the Lord would make him into a great nation. I am sure that this poor woman spent a lot of time riding on a camel, camping out in tents, not knowing where in the world the Lord was taking them, but following her husband to the ends of the Earth.

She went through a lot, too though, that her husband asked of her. Genesis 12:10-20 talks about a journey they had to take to Egypt during a famine where Abram asked his wife to pretend she was his sister, so that he wouldn’t be killed because of her beauty. So she was taken in by the Pharoah and Abram was treated well, but ummmm….the Lord was not too pleased with this decision they made. He struck the Pharoah’s household with serious diseases until the Pharoah realized that he had brought in Abram’s wife for his own! Now, Abram didn’t ask her to do this once, but twice! (see Genesis 20)

Okay, enough about Abram’s sin. But through all this time, Sarai was still barren. No children, so how could it be possible for Abram to become a great nation without any children? What do you think, ladies? Is it time to take things out of God’s hands and do it ourself? Well, Sarai thought it was. It just wasn’t happening as God had planned, so how could it hurt to try it all by myself? So we move on to Genesis 16, where Sarai does just this. Well she couldn’t have babies, but her servant Hagar could! So she tells her husband, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her.” (Gen. 16:2) What? Sarai is giving her husband permission to sleep with another woman? Is she crazy? The thought of MY DH sleeping with another woman…I don’t think I could handle that. And why is the blame on the Lord? Is he REALLY the one keeping her from having children? So Abram agreed and Hagar got pregnant. And guess what….Mrs. Abram was not the least bit happy about this. Why? It was her idea, right? But no……. Sarai comes back with the big one…THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT. “Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.” (Gen. 16:5) Do you ever make a decision to do something then realize what a huge mistake this was when you get the results? I think Sarai did. But there, working as her maid, was a woman who bore her husband a son when she could not. She was probably very hurt and thought that God had forgotten his promise.

But God kept reiterating his promise to Abram and even changed his name to Abraham, and God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. They were 100 and 90 years old respectively. Abraham and Sarah, who were well past childbearing age, both laughed that they would conceive and bear a child in their old age, but God did keep his promise. Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son, and they called him Isaac, which means “laughter”.

What can we learn from Sarah? I think the most important thing is that when God makes a promise, He will keep it. Has God ever made a promise to you? Has He fulfilled that promise yet? If the answer is no, then we continue to wait. To my DH, it probably seemed like God would never change me into the wife that I was intended to be, but he waited patiently, never once thinking about leaving me or cheating on me. God’s ways are the best ways. And His timing is never the same way as ours.

What would you have done in Sarah’s shoes? Would you have taken matters into your own hand? It’s easy to say, “Nah, I would never do that”, but I bet if we got that nagging feeling of “I can’t wait that long! It’s too long!”, might we be thinking of invitro fertilization? adoption? a surrogate mother like Sarah did? Take some notes from Sarah and file it in your memory banks. History does tend to repeat itself, but if we remember her plight when we face a long, hard road, maybe it will comfort us to think of her happiness when God’s promise WAS fulfilled. Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.” (Gen 21:6-7)

This chapter begins by taking us back to the Garden of Eden.  Back to our sister, Eve and the deception she encountered with the serpent.   Satan knew he would have to subtly trick Adam and Eve into doubting God’s intention for them…. by using a campaign aimed at appearing reasonable and not anti-God.   Lies, half truths, and cleverly disguised falsehoods were all it took to cause Eve to doubt and to take the fruit and eat it.

God had given them everything.   Everything in the garden was theirs … BUT one thing… the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.   God knew if they ate from that tree, they would be eternally separated from Him.

I loved this quote from her on p. 31  “Satan promises the best, but pays with the worst; he promises honor and pays with disgrace; he promises pleasure, and pays with pain; he promises profit, and pays with loss; he promises life, and pays with death.”  (Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks)  Isn’t that so true?   Satan is no longer just a serpent…  he appears to us in so many different ways… he’s so hard to see sometimes…. but if we are armed with God’s truth, we can see him every time.

As women, we are prone to fall for Satan’s deception.   Oil of Olay will get rid of all those lines and wrinkles…. melt 10 pounds in 10 minutes! … I am sure you can name many, many deceptions that are thrown at women on a daily basis.

In believing something, put it to the test of these questions…

1.  What is the message here?

2.  Is it really true?

3.  Am I being deceived by a way of thinking that is contrary to the Truth?

When we don’t consider these, we can move from being deceived to being in bondage over it…. when we listen to a lie, we then dwell on the lie…ponder it, think it over… hmmm…. when we dwell on the lie, then we start to believe the lie (Genesis 3:6a) and when we believe the lie, we act on it and we are caught, hook , line and sinker.  (Genesis 3:6b-7)

How do we get free from the bondage of lies?  She lists several steps…

1. Identify the area(s) of bondage or sinful behavior.

2. Identify the lie(s) at the root of that bondage or behavior.

3. Replace the lie(s) with the Truth.

Next week, we will hit on the first of the lies women believe… lies about God.

Another article i wrote in 2008 for during my hiatus.

I love Jesus so much for his forgiveness and his love for sinners. I am one of those sinners who does not deserve his love, but he gives it to me anyway. This is the story that I used to confess to my FH when we started dating. I wanted to get out in the open my past, to give him the opportunity to take me or leave me. I am happy to say that he took me!

This story is based in John 8. This story takes place in Jerusalem. Jesus had just returned from the Mount of Olives and went to the temple to teach. The Pharisees were trying ever so hard to find a reason to accuse him of false prophesy or blastphemy. So here they come into the temple with a woman in tow who was caught in the act of adultery. Now my question is, “Where is the MAN who was in the act of adultery as well?”, but the Pharisees were SO into the letter of the Law, the woman could have been the easiest catch. Who knows….maybe she was having an affair with one of them? But I digress….

So here is this poor woman. Who knows what condition she was in being “caught in the act” and here she is, humiliated, in front of all these men in the temple. The Pharisees commanded that the Law of Moses be enacted on her, which would have meant being stoned to death. What is Jesus doing during all of this? Stooped over on the ground writing in the dirt. What in the world would the Savior of the World be doodling in the dust? The Bible doesn’t say, but thinking he isn’t paying attention to them, the Pharisees keep going on.

Finally Jesus looks up at them and tells them, “He who is without sin amongst you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8: 7 NASB) and he goes right on writing in the dirt. Now these Pharisees must have seen and known what Jesus was writing because one by one, they turned and walked away. When Jesus looked up, he saw only the woman and himself and he asked her where they all went. She told him no one had condemned her, to which he replies, “Neither do I condemn you; go. From now on sin no more.” (John 8: 11 NASB) You see, the only one left there without sin was the Son of Man. Just like I said in my last blog entry, Jesus came into the world to save the world, not to condemn the world. So he forgave the woman and told her to sin no more. He gave her another chance. Did she take advantage of it? We don’t know.

But you know, it is really easy to sin. It was really easy for Adam and Eve from the beginning of time, so why would it be any different for any of us? Sometimes in life when our marriage isn’t going right to us, it is so easy to look for an easy fix…an affair like this woman was involved in. We don’t know much about her at all. Was she married? Was she having an affair with a married man? Was she looking for love in all the wrong places? All we know about her was she was caught having sex with another man. Dear ones, there is nothing that God cannot fix in your marriage. There are times when we need to go to our Abba Father with all our tears and sorrows, not to another man to fulfill our needs. Christ is sufficient for us all. If you have defiled your marriage bed, you can be redeemed by your Father in heaven. Do as Christ told this woman, “go and sin no more.” If you are even considering stepping outside of your marriage bed to meet needs, don’t even go there. Go to the Lord in prayer. Ask Him to help you. Ask Him to help fulfill your needs. Ask Him to help you change to be the wife he intended for your DH. Our time table is not always God’s, so be patient. God’s timing is perfect.

And yes, there is another story coming….in the Lord’s time.