God is faithful, still.

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“And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her. Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?”

We have seen how Abraham waited for twenty five years after the Lord promised him that he would have a son but Sarah also had to wait for those long years as well. At some stage she had experienced menopause and she knew that she would never have the baby that she longed for. That was probably the reason that she asked Abraham to take her slave Hagar and give her a child. Hagar was Sarah’s slave so that any child born to Hagar would belong to Sarah. However, this was not the same as having her own child, the child that she had longed for all those years and now believed that she would never have. We also learn from Heb 11: 11 and 1 Peter 3: 6 that Sarah supported Abraham through these long barren years and trusted God as well. God understood what was in her heart and He knew that she suffered from a crisis in hope rather than a crisis in faith. It was time for her to be given a new name as well. Abraham believed in the Lord and he counted it to him for righteousness and God changed his name from Abram to Abraham to show that this was a fact. This section shows us that Sarah believed God as well and this was counted to her for righteousness as well, hence God changed her name as well. Abraham, however, was still suffering a crisis in hope and he laughed when God gave him this promise. God didn’t punish Abraham for laughing for it was not Abraham’s faithfulness that was being tested, it was God’s faithfulness and God is faithful (Lam 3: 23).