"It will take time."

It's been a while since I've logged any real thoughts on this baby. Therefore I defer to something that caught my attention this week. Halfway through Genesis, we the readers come to know Abraham's dysfunctional family moderately well. Here is Abraham, this man at the foundation of three of today's major world faiths, and he can't tell his half-sister/wife from her handmaiden? Slight exaggeration, but the point is that God does incredible things in and through this man and this family.

The awesome thing about the Bible being the living word of God is that it's timeless. Because of that factor, strength can be gleaned from this Book regardless of when and where in our own lives we approach it. That said, what intrigued me this time around was a phrase that's been translated "according to the time of life." Check it out:

Genesis 18:10-14
And He said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son." (Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.) Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well advanced in age; and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, "After I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" And the LORD said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, "Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old?' Is anything too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son."

So cool, I think, that God's promise to Abraham and Sarah was a promise that defied death. Their reproductive systems were dead and so were their hopes of descendants. But Yahweh brought life where there was death. The promises He made to them in the middle of what felt like death were fulfilled at the time He'd appointed for life.

It gives hope.