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Believe God and Wait on Him

Abraham and Sarah

If we want to experience the transformation that God desires to bring in our lives, an important first step is to believe God. Not only must we believe in God; we must believe what God says. We must believe God’s promises are true and that He has the power to bring them to pass, even when our circumstances tempt us to believe otherwise. This often involves placing ourselves in God’s hands as we wait on His timing.

A Hopeful Couple

When I think of believing God and waiting on His timing, I think of Abraham and Sarah—known to us first in the Bible as Abram and Sarai. In Hebrew, Abram’s name literally means “Exalted Father.” Though it may seem strange to us that his parents named their newborn “Father,” to them it represented their dreams for their son’s prosperity, which in their day meant growing up to be a father with lots of children.

Abram did grow up, and he married Sarai, whose name means “Princess.” But even after being married so long that their friends had children and even grandchildren, Abram and Sarai remained childless. In a culture that placed such high value on the number of offspring one had, this was a devastating blow.

Then God began to make outlandish and epic promises to Abram and Sarai in their old age, declaring that they would become the parents of many offspring—a great nation (Genesis 12:1-4)—and later “many nations” (Genesis 17:1-4). God even gave Abram a powerful visual to go with this promise, telling him that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:5).

The promise of God’s blessings in Abram and Sarai’s lives was so overwhelming that their lives were utterly transformed by God. From the moment God made the promise, everything was different. Even their names had to be changed.

Never the Same

God said to Abraham, “No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. . . . As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her” (Genesis 17:5, 15-16).

In light of the big changes God wanted to make in Abram and Sarai’s lives, the changes in their names seem so small. In fact, the difference was just one letter each in Hebrew. But when God makes changes, the tiniest adjustment can communicate big things for us, our futures, and those whose lives we will impact.

Abram and Sarai each received the same letter as an addition to their names. In Hebrew the letter is called “Hey,” similar to our “H.” Abram became Abraham and Sarai was renamed Sarah. The addition of that one letter shifted the meaning of their names to fit God’s plan for their future. Abram, “The Exalted Father,” was now Abraham, “The Father of Many Nations.” And Sarai, “My Little Princess,” was now “A True Princess.”

Hearing their new names spoken by God must have been an awesome moment, one where God painted a clear picture of the future He had in mind for them.

Waiting on God

Abraham and Sarah received awesome promises from God, but what they did not receive was a timeline for when those promises would be fulfilled. They learned quickly that trusting this God and His promises meant a lot of waiting, hoping, and praying.

There were a few years when my life felt like one big waiting room. My heart’s desire was to become a mom, but my body just wasn’t cooperating. After a couple of years in the waiting room of my regular ob-gyn, I moved on to the bigger and more expensive waiting room of a specialist, and a lab, and an operating room, and lots of other places where it seemed like all I could do was . . . wait.

After what seemed like an eternity of trying, the joy of finding out we were expecting our first baby was quickly eclipsed by the devastating news that I had miscarried. That led to more tests, more doctors’ visits, and more waiting as we anticipated answers and results.

Abraham and Sarah’s lives were full of waiting for their longing for a child to be fulfilled. From their perspective it must have seemed that their prayers were getting harder and harder to answer because of their advancing age, but to a God who loves a challenge, the timing was just right. The more difficult something is to make happen, the more God enjoys rolling up His sleeves and impressing the world by doing what only He can accomplish. Waiting for the blessing can often be part of the blessing itself, since we have to rely on God in new and unexpected ways. Abraham and Sarah’s longings were finally satisfied by the arrival of their little boy, Isaac, the fulfillment of both their dreams and God’s promises.

I never would have chosen the path that my husband and I went down over those years of waiting. But I recognize now that the waiting strengthened my marriage and my relationship with God more than I could have imagined at the time. Those years gave me a deep appreciation for Abraham and Sarah. When I read their story of waiting, I see their years of discouragement and anguish but also their growing trust and hope in God. Abraham and Sarah had different hearts, a different marriage, and a different outlook on God’s promises after twenty-five long years of waiting.

Believing and trusting God doesn’t mean that our prayers will be instantaneously answered, as if God were some cosmic vending machine ready to dispense our wishes and wants. Instead, it means that our waiting and longing can become a tool that transforms us rather than an obstacle to happiness and fulfillment. Choosing to believe God’s promises and trust God’s goodness means that we turn our waiting over to Him. When we do, moments when we impatiently thought nothing was happening at all can become some of the most productive, transformational times of our lives.