Genesis 18:14

The plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations” (Psalm 33:11). But we must be prepared to wait on God’s timing. His timing is precise, for He does things “at the very time” He has set. It is not for us to know His timing, and in fact we cannot know it—we must wait for it.

If God had told Abraham while he was in Haran that he would have to wait thirty years before holding his promised child in his arms, his heart might have failed him. So God, as an act of His gracious love, hid from Abraham the number of weary years he would be required to wait. Only as the time was approaching, with but a few months left to wait, did God reveal His promise: “At the appointed time next year . . . Sarah will have a son” (Genesis 18:14). The “appointed time” came at last, and soon the joyous laughter that filled the patriarch’s home caused the now elderly couple to forget their long and tiring wait.

He is able . . . to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.—Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

God wants us to ask Him for the impossible! God can do things that man cannot do. He would not be God if this were not so. That is why He has graciously made prayer a law of life. “If ye shall ask . . . I will do” (John 14:14 KJV). This inviting promise from the Lord means that He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves; He will do for others what we cannot do for them— if we but ask Him. How little do we avail ourselves of this immense privilege!

Someone spoke this searching word at Edinburgh in 1910: “We have lost the eternal youthfulness of Christianity and have aged into calculating manhood. We seldom pray in earnest for the extraordinary, the limitless, the glorious. We seldom pray with any confidence, for any good to the realization of which we cannot imagine a way. And yet, we suppose ourselves to believe in an Infinite Father.”

This is God’s loving challenge to you and me each day. He wants us to think of the deepest, highest, and worthiest desires and longings of our hearts. He wants us to think of those things that perhaps were desires for ourselves or someone dear to us, yet have gone unfulfilled for so long that we now see them as simply lost desires. And God urges us to think of even the one thing that we once saw as possible but have given up all hope of seeing fulfilled in this life.

That very thing, as long as it aligns with what we know to be His expressed will—as a son was to Abraham and Sarah—God intends to do for us. Yes, if we will let Him, God will do that very thing, even if we know it is such an utter impossibility that we would simply laugh at the absurdity of anyone ever suggesting it could come to pass.

I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause.

Is anything too hard for the Lord ?—Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.—Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.—Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.

Have faith in God. Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.—Without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.