Scripture Reading: Genesis 18:1-15
SARAH was approaching age 90 when she overheard a mysterious visitor tell her husband that she’d give birth to her first child in a year’s time. Sarah thought she was alone and unseen when she laughed in disbelief, but God revealed to Abraham how she’d reacted (Gen. 18:13-15). Sarah tried denying it, but the exchange emphasizes that nothing—not even a weary laugh—is hidden from God.
In fact, it wasn’t the first time Sarah had heard this promise. God had previously told her nearly century-old husband that she would give birth and the boy’s name would be Isaac (Genesis 17:15-22). Abraham had fathered one child, Ishmael, with Sarah’s Egyptian maid Hagar. But now God was saying the son born to Sarah in her old age would be heir to an earlier promise: that Abraham would be the father of a great nation (Genesis 12:2-3).
Sarah’s disbelief did not disqualify her from receiving the miraculous blessing God promised—and which the mysterious visitor had described with such clarity. God’s plans were far greater than her very understandable doubts. And after Sarah’s lifetime of infertility, her pregnancy would drive home an important lesson: Our supernatural God isn’t limited by what we label as “impossible.”
