IS ANYTHING TOO DIFFICULT FOR GOD?

“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14, ESV).

God asked Abraham and Sarah this question in response to a crisis in their life. Actually it was more than a question; it was a response to their impatience and to Sarah’s attempt to manipulate the promise of God.

Twenty-four years earlier, God had spoken to Abraham: “Go from your country . . . to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation” (Genesis 12:1-2, ESV). In obedience Abraham took his wife and his nephew Lot and stepped out in faith to follow God’s leading. They came to the land of the Canaanites and God said to Abraham, “To your offspring I will give this land” (verse 7).

Years went by but no children came. Abraham was frustrated and it bursts forth in Genesis 15:2-3 when he complained to God, “What good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son; you’ve given me no children.” Sarah decided to take things into her own hands and tried to manipulate the promise of God. Her presumptive idea was that Abraham would father a child by one of her servants. Sarah’s inappropriate action and Abraham’s seeming agreement would give birth to a mistake that continues to have tragic implications to this very day, as Sarah’s servant would have a child who became the father of the Arab nations.

Both Abraham and Sarah are now past the point of having children in the natural. It is twenty-four years past the initial promise and hope has died in Abraham. It is at this point of despair that God reveals Himself to Abraham and says, “I am Almighty God (El Shaddai); walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you . . . and you shall be a father of many nations” (Genesis 17:1-2, 4, NKJV).

In Genesis 18 we are given an additional look at God’s patient dealing with Abraham. Abraham has an encounter with the Lord (Genesis 18:1) that culminates with the Lord saying to him and Sarah, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son” (18:10).

Sarah was hidden but was listening to the conversation. When she heard this statement she broke into laughter and said to herself, “I’m old and worn out and so is my husband! I can’t have children” (see 18:12).

“The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord?’” (18:14).

At this point the story takes an interesting shift away from the apparent inability of the couple to reproduce and focuses on their doubt. God causes this refocus by asking the question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” This question shifts the attention from man’s inability to God’s ability. 

The Hebrew word for hard is sometimes translated “wonderful or incomprehensible.” Another way of expressing the meaning of this verse would be, “Is there anything so wonderful, so incomprehensible that God cannot do it?”

The Lord then went on to say, “At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son” (18:14). 

Promises require patience on our part. “For you have need of endurance (patience), so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36, ESV). There is always an appointed time for the fulfillment of a promise or a word God has spoken to us. Our presumption is not going to change His timing. We are to wait for it! That does not mean to lie back and do nothing but to be actively engaged in prayer, in faith and in the purpose of God for our life. “The vision awaits its appointed time. . . . If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come” (Habakkuk 2:3, ESV).

Sarah denied laughing, because she was afraid. We tend to think of Sarah as being immature in her faith and we chide her for that. Yet, when we are confronted with an impossible situation that would require the fulfillment of an immense promise, we react in much the same way Sarah did by saying things such as, “I don’t know if that could ever happen!” If we were honest we would admit that we were afraid or fearful that God could not or would not do what He had promised. Honesty requires humility and we do not live in a humble generation!

One year later this couple whose bodies were past the point of being reproductively fruitful had a son, Isaac, who became the father of Jacob, who was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. The promise that God had made to Abraham twenty-five years earlier was fulfilled. The odds of their having a child at this point in their lives were, in the natural, insurmountable but, “Is there anything so wonderful, so incomprehensible, that it is too difficult for the Lord?”