Dear God,
I wish to humble myself before You, Mighty God, Who in heaven receives the praise and adoration of thousands of pure sinless angels. Therefore it is amazing that You love and care about every person that was ever created, despite their sinful thoughts and wickedness, selfishness and hate expressed toward others. It is so sad, that we so often do not believe and accept Your absolutely pure, all powerful and all-knowing divinity, and too often do not stop to think, that nothing is hidden from You.
An example of You loving forbearance in reaction to unspoken unbelief and then spoken untruth, comes in Genesis 18: 1 – 15 Abraham was resting at his tent door, in the heat of the day, when upon lifting his eyes, he saw three men standing near him. He went quickly to them and bowed to the ground, Verse 3 “and said, ’My Lord, if I have now found favour in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant.’”
God had previously promised Abraham, that he would father a son through Sarah, and so would begin a great nation. Now Abraham was ninety-nine and Sarah well beyond the age when woman bear children, and the heavenly visitor says, Verse 10 ”’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.) Sarah did not believe, the Lord, Verse 12 “Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘after I have grown old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’”
This so typical of the way, we in our limited experience and abilities, in unbelief limit God to as it is in our world. Of course the heavenly visitor knew what Sarah, had secretly thought in her tent, and asked why Sarah had laughed. Without harshness toward Sarah, the Lord in Verse 14 “Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah will have a Son.” Reacting as a guilty sinner, Verse 15 “Sarah denied it, saying, ‘I did not laugh,’…..And He said, ‘No, but you did laugh’.” The Lord had given Sarah a chance to confess her lie. However she was not deprived of the promised child, through an undoubted miracle; she gave birth to their own son.
Bring us to true repentance for all wrong doing. Thank You for such deep and boundless love, as displayed to Sarah and Abraham.
Amen