Waiting for the Impossible (Genesis 21:5)

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
– Genesis 21:5

That’s quite a verse. How many hundred-year-old dads of newborns do you know? I’m guessing the answer is zero. This is very unusual—indeed, I would say impossible. And that’s the point. God is able to do the impossible.

I think about putting myself in Abraham’s shoes—not just year after year after year, but decade after decade after decade—waiting for this son that God had promised to Abraham.

And yet, decade after decade, he found himself wondering when. I don’t know how good you are at waiting and being patient, especially waiting and trusting patiently for God to do the impossible. But that’s the story of Abraham and his wife, Sarah. And in one verse—Genesis 21:5—it happens. Abraham and Sarah have this child that God had promised.

Genesis 21:5 reminds us that God is can do the impossible.

I just want to encourage you today with two truths. One, God is able to do the impossible. And two, God is worthy of your waiting. Even as I say that, those two truths hit home in my own heart in a fresh way—in a way that I need to hear. So if this podcast episode isn’t for anybody else, it is for me.

But I trust I’m not the only one who needs to hear those two promises: that God is able to do the impossible—so he is worthy of your trust in that way—and that God is worthy of your waiting. He is worthy of your trust in that way too.

So, God, I know why those two truths mean so much to me right now, and you know why those two truths mean a lot to a variety of other people.

And so we praise you for these two truths. We praise you for your power to do the impossible. God, we believe; help our unbelief. We confess that we are prone to doubt your power. Oh God, we are prone to doubt your wisdom. We are prone to doubt your love. God, forgive us.

Genesis 21:5 reminds us that God is worthy of our trust and our waiting.

We praise you for how you showed yourself faithful to Abraham—faithful to use your power with your wisdom to show your love. And God, we praise you that you will do the same in our lives. Not that we know how every single thing or detail in our lives or our families is going to play out, but in the end, you will show yourself faithful with your power, your wisdom, and your love. You are able to do far more than what we can even ask or imagine.

We praise you for your power to do the impossible, and we praise you as the God who is worthy—you are infinitely worthy—of our waiting. So help us, God, amid anything that comes to our minds that we are waiting on right now. We pray that you would help us to wait patiently and trustfully, to rest in you, that we would not be restless in our waiting. God, we pray that you would help us to rest peacefully in you, knowing that you are working all the time in our waiting, and that we will never, ever, ever regret waiting on you.

God, as we pray that in our own lives and praise you for these realities in our lives, we also pray for people who are waiting to hear the good news of your love—people who don’t even know what they are missing out on.

A Prayer for the Shaikh People

God, we pray specifically today for one of the largest unreached people groups in the world: the Shaikh people of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—more than 100 million of them—who are waiting to hear the good news of your love in Jesus. Please, O God, we pray: cause the gospel to spread to them. We intercede for them. God, we pray that you would bless the church in Bangladesh, bless the church in India, bless the church in Pakistan, and raise up the church from other places to join with them, so that the Shaikh people are no longer waiting on the greatest news in the world.

We pray all of this in light of the miracle of Isaac’s birth to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 21:5. In Jesus’ name, amen.