The Bible is full of so many miracles, and one of the earliest ones that we see is the pregnancy of Abraham and Sarah. They were 100 and 90 respectively when Sarah finally falls pregnant in the end, and it had been a long journey to get there.
Towards the end of their waiting they are visited by three, what seems like, angels although they are described as men in the text. While the men were talking with Abraham one of them asked about Sarah and goes on to tell Abraham that when they return in a years time Sarah would have a son. Sarah was listening to the conversation and given her age we are told that she begins to laugh at the thought of it. She even says “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”
The Lord wonders why Sarah finds this funny. I can only imagine how scary it would have been for Sarah for the Lord to ask question like that. He thinks that Sarah is questioning His ability to provide a son for her even thought the odds seen difficult. This is what is said about Sarah next;
Sarah was afraid, so she lied and said, “I did not laugh.” But he said, “Yes, you did laugh.” Genesis 18:15
This feels to me like the awkward moment in a classroom or some serious room when you have the giggles but are caught laughing – it’s the worst feeling. The feeling where it seems like your blood turns cold!
The thing that jumped out to me in this was how Sarah’s lie had a source.
That source was fear
Fear is the cause of so many negative reactions in our world, in fact it rarely causes anything good. I know people talk about a healthy fear but I just don’t buy it. Every time fear is in control everything else isn’t.
Healthy respect, yes, but fear….NO.
I thought I would quickly add a few other things outside of dishonesty that fear causes in us;
- Over-reactions – we all know that we tend to overstate when we are afraid. Whether that is a physical, emotional or spiritual reaction, fear will often lead us there.
- Under-reactions – Yep, it can do the opposite too! Sometimes fear causes a numbness or a ‘freeze’ in us that simply means we shut down and don’t react to something that we really should.
- Poor choices – so this follows on from the other two but so many poor choices are made out of fear. Choosing a partner because we are afraid of being on our own, picking a university course because we are scared of missing out, over paying for a product because we fear others reactions.
- Rudeness – when someone is in the grips of fear they tend to speak in all sorts of ways that they wouldn’t whenever fear wasn’t at the wheel. I’m often said crazy things when I have been in fear mode – I am no longer in control of my reactions!
- Bias – when fear is in control we will always make choices and offer opinions that steer us away from that fear. In conversations where a choice needs to be made often the best solution will never be reached if fear is in the room.
We must dispel fear everywhere that we can. John said it like this
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love 1 John 4:18 (NIV)