Sarah in the Bible

Sarai grew to resent Hagar and her son. Yet God still promised that she would bear her own child. God spoke to Abram and changed his name to Abraham, which means “father of many nations”.

Additionally, God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah, which means “princess, noblewoman”. A little while later three men came to visit Abraham and Sarah. They predicted that in a year’s time, Sarah would become a mother to a son.

Sarah laughed to herself when she heard their prediction, but later denied it when God called her out for her unbelief. Despite everything that had happened, God showed Sarah grace, and she became pregnant and gave birth at 90 years old. Her son, Isaac, would go on to faithfully serve God and through him Abraham’s descendants would multiply.

Lessons from the life of Sarah in the Bible

When God makes a promise, He is faithful to follow through on that promise. Even though God promised Abraham and Sarah that they would bear a child, they had a difficult time believing that it would come to pass. As they grew older their hope faded away and their dreams seemed unreachable.

Sarah believed that rather than waiting on God to bring about His promise, she would need to take matters into her own hands. She gave her servant Hagar to Abraham, and through their union, Abraham had a son Ishmael. However, God still stated that this was not their promised child, the child who would carry on Abraham’s covenant with God.

How many times do we, like Sarah, believe that we need to take charge of our lives? When God calls us to wait, we rush ahead believing that our dreams will never happen unless we take matters into our own hands. We believe that God is holding out on us.

We try to fix our problems on our own without considering that God might have a different plan in mind. While independence can be a great trait, we just aren’t big enough or strong enough to handle our problems on our own.

This can be difficult to realize when the neighbors are still annoying us, we wait for a little one to call our own, or our husband just can’t seem to learn where the dirty dishes should go after dinner.

It can be tempting to want to make our goals happen on our own. But our dreams are not bigger than God’s plans. No matter how hard we try, God is still ultimately in control of our lives, and He will bring His good plans to fruition.

God is infinitely gentle with our hearts, and he knows the desires of our souls. We can give up control over our lives and rest knowing that He is good, and His promises will come to pass. When all we can see are the shadows of our past or our fear of the future, God is there in the present moment to remind us that He will not leave us. He is the light that will reignite hope and love in our lives. Sarah was a free woman, whereas Hagar was a servant.

Our path through our own wilderness of doubt is not distressing to God. He saw our entire lives before we were even born. He can lead us past the pain in our hearts and into the promised life He has waiting for us on the other side of our fear.

Even when we fall short of God’s best, we can cry out to Him knowing that His grace is always present to heal our souls. He loves us tremendously, and He will be faithful to calm our weary hearts and bring His promises to pass.