Disappointment With God: What to Do When God Feels Silentಮಾದರಿ

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU HIT A DEAD END

WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT SARAH

Do you ever get jealous while looking at someone’s social media account? Man, I do.

You’re scrolling around and see someone smiling with their toddler children who are always joyful, and apparently never cry, like yours.

Or someone will post pics on a beach in Hawaii (or worse, those cool over-the-water-huts in Tahiti) and you know you can’t afford that. Your yacht budget is pretty small these days.

Or you see someone else humming along in their career, and you wonder why you can’t find that level of success and/or stock options.

But it’s not just that. Sometimes, life comes along and wallops us with unexpected grief or hurricanes of deep disappointment. Why don’t those storms hit those other people? Am I the only one going through this?

The truth is, that sunny Instagram picture is nowhere near the whole truth. As a culture, we’ve gotten really good at covering up how desperate we feel. We post our carefully curated highlight reels, but inside we’re longing for something more – healing, purpose, freedom, or hope. The opening of Sarah’s story shows us a powerful truth. God meets us right in the middle of that quiet desperation. He then invites us to trust and follow Him as He helps us walk into a better story. But first, we have to be really honest about our own desperate state. This isn’t easy.

After the story of the Tower of Babel, we learn that some of Noah’s direct descendants settled in the land of the Chaldeans in the cities of Ur and Haran. They include Abram and Sarai, who will later be called Abraham and Sarah.

Because you and I are outsiders to this time period, we might miss the subtlety going on here. These cities were two centers of lunar worship. Historians tell us that Abram’s father’s name, “Terah,” was almost identical to the moon god that was worshipped in that region. Sarai’s name was the same name as the female partner of the moon-goddess Sin. Her sister-in-law Milkah’s name was the name of Sin’s daughter – also a moon goddess.

Why is that such a big deal?

It means Noah’s descendents – people who had knowledge of Yahweh the Creator God – were not acting as faithful covenant partners. God rescued Abram and Sarai’s ancestors from the flood. But the family was not worshipping that God. They were worshipping other gods.

WHAT WE LEARN ABOUT GOD
This was not what God wanted from humanity. God wants to be in a loving, faithful relationship with us, where we can be fruitful and multiply.

But the tragic details of the story turn even more heart-wrenching. In Genesis 11:30 we learn that Sarai cannot have children. How can Abram and Sarai be fruitful and multiply if they can’t even have children? In his Old Testament commentary, Walter Brueggemann puts it like this:

The barrenness of Sarah is an effective metaphor for hopelessness. This text tells us there is no foreseeable future. There is no human power to invent a future. The human race and human history have just hit a dead end.

The opening overture of Sarai’s story doesn’t look so good. But we’ll soon see that everything – *everything* – will change when God gets involved.

HOW WE CAN GROW
This is a deeply sobering reminder to you and me. We need God, even if we think we don’t. Even if we think we’re staggeringly intelligent, 21st-century humans with incredible technology and unlimited potential, having “spiritual eyes to see” means that we realize our deep need for God to come into our lives.

I think about the first step of Alcoholics Anonymous, the addiction recovery group: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.” Admitting we’re powerless means we’re aware of our desperation. Jesus would later say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit - for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 5:3 NIV). It’s as though Jesus is saying “Blessed are those who come to the end of their rope, who know how bad things are, because God can really show up in that situation.”

Sarai’s story is also a reminder that your family’s spiritual legacy – or lack of it – doesn’t automatically determine anything. It doesn’t matter what our family’s lineage of faith is, you and I still need God to come to us.

The story shows that everyone needs God to escape dead ends. That includes the “very best” families on earth, those with devoted lines of God followers in the family lineage – and those whose families are filled with the opposite.

Prayer + Reflection
Are you facing what feels like a dead end? What would it look like to admit your need for God to intervene?

Keep reading—because in the very next part of the story, we’ll see that when all hope seems lost, God moves… and God moves first.