"Is Anything Too Wonderful for the Lord"

Author: Pastor Mike Gutzler

This fall we are taking a look at our extended faith family. Each week, we will take a look at our earliest faith ancestors and thinking about their stories as our stories or our families’ stories. The idea of a family photo album comes to mind. We don’t know if these stories are completely true or if they actually happened, but just like the legends of our ancestral past they shape who we are and give us identity today.

Abraham and Sarah, our relatives in focus this week, are important ancestors to us and many millions of other people around the world. Abraham and Sarah are the two people that Jews, Christians and Muslim all point to as our collective patriarch and matriarch. Therefore their story is important.

Today we only focus on one element of their story, and it’s Sarah’s laughter in two forms. Sarah laughs cynically at the news that she will have a son in her very old age, and she laughs joyfully when God’s promise is once again fulfilled.

We get to read and know Sarah’s story, but what about us. Can we think of a time when the promise of “it will be better some day” or “this too shall pass” was greeted with a cynical chuckle or outburst of laughter? Only then—days, weeks, months or years later—we look back at that moment and can laugh joyfully about how much the situation has changed.

The key moment that changes cynical laughter to joyful laughter is when God says in Genesis 18:14: “Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?” Our Lord is a restoring and life-giving God. God is about doing wonderful things for us and for others.

Today it might be worth a moment to consider the ways God has done wonderful things in our lives, and the ways we are called to help facilitate wonderfulness in the lives of others – especially the older folks in our lives.