January 9, 2025, What Are You Looking At?
“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?’” (Gen. 18:13-14a NKJV).
What Are You Looking At?
When I was completing my master’s degree in history at North Carolina Central University in Durham in the 1980s and participating in a teaching fellowship at Duke University, I was presented with a great opportunity. I laughed and waved it off because I didn’t believe it was possible. One of my professors, Professor Stephen Fortune, urged me to enroll in a doctoral program at Duke University. He said he would help me get in. I was not confident in my ability to matriculate through a doctoral program at the prestigious university. I was also teaching full-time at Hillside High in Durham. I doubted that I could get into the program at Duke despite the great professor’s insistence and offer of assistance. I was fearful and lacked confidence.
We tend to look at the circumstances and then resort to what we call ‘realism’ when presented with an opportunity or when facing a crisis or major challenge of any sort. In the Scripture above the circumstances were that Abraham was about 100, his wife, Sarah was about 90, and the Bible even called them old (Gen. 18:11). Yet the LORD said, they would have a son. Sarah laughed because having a baby at 90 by a hundred-year-old man did not align with her concept of what was real. But the promise that she would conceive was from the LORD.
We think it is impossible because we are looking at the circumstances rather than to the One from whence comes our help. I thought a master’s degree was my limit and for the next three decades, it was. That’s how long it took me to finally enroll in a doctoral program and ultimately complete it. What if I had taken to heart the question the LORD posed to Abraham when Sarah laughed? “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” What if I had understood what it took me over 30 years to grasp in my youth? Nothing is too hard for the One who dwells within me.
So, what are you looking at, your circumstances or the One who asked, “Is Anything too hard for the LORD? Whatever the LORD has promised you, go after it now!
Focus Quote: “But Jesus looked at them, and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 NKJV).
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