Wednesday 14-01-09

… The impossible will become possible

Biblical text – Hebrew 11:11-12 “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise. And so from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as sand on the seashore.”

Complementary text: John 20:24-29

Thought of the day:

Everyone who has been touched by the thoughts of the previous days will thank this one. What happens when God comes into our lives and blesses us in “inexplicable” ways? As recorded in Genesis 18:10-15, Sarah smiled at what she thought was improbable: a 90 years old woman and a 100 years old man having a child. We see by this attitude of Sarah that even our role models in the faith were not mere “spiritual robots” that responded like machines every time God spoke to them. God allowed them to be “flesh and bone” people, capable of expressing their doubts, their emotions, their reservations when confronted with God’s will.
“God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9), which is good news for us, since His thoughts do not conform to what we know from this life. In fact, God frequently changes our plans and gives us something incredibly good and new. And when that happens, no one “after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says ‘The old is better’” (Luke 5:39).
When we achieve what God has planned for us, we feel satisfied and accomplished; we rejoice in God and in what He has done, but oftentimes our first reaction is to smile, like Sarah did, or doubt, like Thomas (John 20:24-25). Nevertheless, God is patient with us and decides to persuade us (see Jeremiah 20:7).
We don’t have to be ashamed if we have “smiled” and we don’t have to pretend that we instantly understood and accepted God’s will, and have put it in practice right away. God reminded Sarah of her smile (Genesis 18:15) to help her overcome her initial lack of faith and her difficulty in understanding His will. That way, every time Sarah called her son’s name, she would remember that God has the power to transform attitudes of disbelief into attitudes of faith, and she would laugh of herself for having doubted. Have we been laughing of our own reactions, as well?

Worship and Thanksgiving
To contemplate in gratitude what God has done;
God does not reject those who doubt;
Our weaknesses are not an obstacle for God to accomplish His plans.

Intercession
That God may transform our attitudes of disbelief into attitudes of faith;
That we may be merciful with one another in order to understand each other better;
For the negative aspects of the world.