tension

It is hard to trust God when your dignity is at stake. It is hard to trust that He has your good in mind, when the only possible outcome is humiliation.  It's hard to dream, to hold onto His promises, to believe... when the enemy comes and lies and says that God is a trickster.  It reminds me of the words my friend Wendy Andrews wrote,

"A servant of the Lord visited them one day, when they “were old, advanced in age; Sarah was past childbearing,” and he spoke to them a confirmation of the Promise’s arrival: “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.” And Sarah, listening in at the door of the tent, “laughed to herself” at the relaying of these words.

I know that laugh. It’s a little sarcastic and a tiny bit bitter. It’s self-protective, because it’s a lot safer to shrug off words whose reception would have to mean hope in what’s still unseen. If she chooses to believe but is wrong in the end, then she looks like an utter fool, and maybe worse yet, feels like onel. Her laugh is a little hopeless and despairing but not too far down that road, because living there for too long becomes completely unbearable. It’s so much easier to live a little dead, just coasting, pretty much along for the ride. The Lord said to Abraham, Sarah’s husband, “Why did Sarah laugh, “saying, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, when I am so old?’

“Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”

Oh, these words pierce my heart. It’s a rhetorical question asked by the Creator and Author and Main Character in the Story whose End is quite settled. “Then the Lord took note of Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah as He had promised. So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.” In this fulfillment of a 25-year Promise, God kindly watered Sarah’s a-little-bit-hardened-heart and she flourished in the goodness of God in the land of the living.

“Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”

I don’t believe so. My head doesn’t believe so, I mean. My heart might disagree. That’s okay, though, because He has never been intimidated by what I can see with my eyes. He is very good at convincing me at the deepest level that He is kind and loving, not a trickster, that He is indeed taking note of me as He had said."

I want so badly to defend my honor, to speak plainly and definitively about my intentions, to reaffirm that it is my job to follow the leader of this dance but I cannot.  I must remain in the tension, for to assert myself would be to force the issue of promise and I don't want to end up with an Ishamel in this situation.

Lord help me to trust you!