Faith in God's divinity

And by faith even Sarah, who was past childbearing age, was enabled to bear children because she considered him faithful who had made the promise. —Hebrews 11:11, NIV

One of the remarkable attributes of the Bible’s story is seen in the fact that God is the God of the impossible. So impossible, in fact, are certain incidents in the Bible (such as Sarah’s above) that many discount them. “That can’t happen!” is a frequent refrain. And yet the Bible simply reports elements of Scripture’s remarkable story as they unfold.

In reading the story of the Bible, though, it becomes clear that the inclusion of the miraculous is not for the purpose of tickling our imagination or entertaining our fantasies. Vehemently not. It is, rather, for the purpose of telling us something about God and God’s desire for us as his creation.

It is in that light, then, that we need to read the text above. On the surface, it’s laughable! A woman in her ninth decade (as reported by Genesis) with child?! “What do you take us for?! We are, after all, members of a health sciences university. We know that such just doesn’t happen.”

So how do we approach this?

I suggest three realities in mind.

One, this one verse compresses a story that takes chapters to unfold back in the book of Genesis. It’s the story of a couple — Abraham and Sarah — whose direct relationship with God forms the basis for much of the story yet to come. The highlights, though, are these: God promises Abraham and Sarah that a people will come forth from them — a people pivotal to the unfolding plan of God in the world, a people from which one day will be born the promised Redeemer, the one who will save the world. As though to underline that this will be a completely divine act, God allows humanity to come to the point of realizing that if this does happen — if this child is ultimately to be a descendant from Abraham and Sarah — it will not be because of human effort or creativity. It will be a solely divine act.

Two, the text makes clear that becoming pregnant “past childbearing age” happened because of one thing: Sarah “considered him faithful who had made the promise.” In other words, she believed God — she believed the God whom she and Abraham had come to know personally. And she believed beyond what would be considered reasonable. It wasn’t a blind faith. It was the faith of a person who has come to know another person deeply and well and who thus is confident that the other person will fulfill their promise.

And three, the text draws all of this together with two words (in English; one word in the original Greek): “by faith.”

Sarah’s story underlines a vital facet of faith as the Bible understands it. It is not blind. It asks questions. It wrestles with realities that are not easy. Each of these appears in Sarah’s (and Abraham’s) story in Genesis. But, in the end, after grappling with difficult things, faith chooses to believe in the person — God — whom one has come to know, even when God doesn’t make complete sense.

Linda Holm, wife of gospel singer Dallas Holm, fought breast cancer for many years — decades, in fact — before going to her rest in Jesus just a few weeks ago. At one point, early in the process, in an interview, Dallas said the following:

“Sometimes in our valley and in our sorrow we believe if we just knew what God was doing, that would settle it. I’m not sure that would make any difference. Faith is when you don’t know. When it doesn’t make sense. When you can’t understand. But you trust in God.”

For decades of childlessness, Sarah wrestled with how God was going to fulfill that promise made so long ago, especially now that she was “past childbearing age.”

But in the end, God came through. He fulfilled his promise.

It’s a lasting lesson for us. Because I don’t know when, I don’t know how, I don’t know whether in this life or the next. But I do know one thing: God will fulfill his promise. To you. To me. To us.

Well… Maybe a better way to say that is to say that I believe that.

By faith.

—Randy Roberts, DMin, LMFT, is vice president for spiritual life and mission at Loma Linda University Health.