Lilac Ministries

Bible Study Lessons

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Scripture: Genesis 17:15-19 & 18:9-15

Topic: Sarah's Laughter

I want you to think of a prayer request you’ve had for a very long time. It’s the one just for you. It’s the one so seemingly impossible that you might have given up on even asking God about it.

Got it?

                It will be answered by the end of this year!

Did you laugh? When I posed this question to our Bible Study group, we laughed or smirked or rolled our eyes. We gave the laugh of “Yeah, right!” This is precisely what Abraham and Sarah felt when the Lord told them that they would be having a child at ages 100 and 90, respectively.

Hoping for an answer to a seemingly impossible prayer is a difficult thing. No prayer to be 20 years younger will be answered, nor will a prayer that a beloved one never die. These are matter-of-fact parts of our life experience. But prayers regarding health, finance, relationship, education, job, etc., might well be answered - even if those prayers seem impossible now.

We realize that in our mortal life “we see as in a mirror dimly, but then face to face” (I Cor 13:12). We don’t understand the spiritual world fully while we yet live in this flesh, but one day we will know even as we are known. For now, we live by a faith that is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1). If we look day by day for God’s hand at work in answering our prayers - even those that seem impossible - it may be that we will see Him preparing those answers. It may also be that He will guide us to even better prayer answers for our lives.

Jesus said, “With God, all things are possible” (Matt 19:26) and “Seek and you shall find” (Matt 7:7).

Let me close this summary with a tiny prayer: “Father, we ask that you answer the impossible prayers that are hidden in the deepest nook of our hearts. Please transform our laughter of ‘Yeah, right!’ into a laughter of joy. Amen.”