Journey to the Cross

Pause

You are here. God is here.

God meets you right where you are – in a place God has been before.

God calls you into a place of promise, a place of blessing, a place of grace.

Stay here awhile. Stay here with God.

Listen

God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, you will no longer call her Sarai. Her name will now be Sarah. I will bless her and even give you a son from her. I will bless her so that she will become nations, and kings of peoples will come from her.”

Abraham fell on his face and laughed. He said to himself, Can a 100-year-old man become a father, or Sarah, a 90-year-old woman, have a child?

Genesis 17:15-17

Think

I remember being first surprised, then delighted the first time I heard this particular phrase. The speaker was an older African-American woman from the South, and I was an elementary-aged white boy from the Northeast. Something or other had astounded her, caught her off guard. And she replied, “Well, I’ll be blessed!”

When I had heard a similar phrase before, it ended with a curse word. But the way she saw it, whatever amazing thing she just discovered, she thought was an unexpected blessing. She shook her head, smiling, and said it again: “Well, I’ll be blessed.”

I picture this woman when I hear about 90-year old Sarah learning that she and her 100-year-old husband would become parents — parents of kings and peoples and nations! Others may have cursed at such news. Abraham fell on his face, laughing. But Sarah, at least as I imagine her, just shook her head, smiling. “Well, I’ll be blessed,” she said. “I’ll be blessed.”

Peter Hanson

Pray

God of surprises, you keep catching me off guard. Bless me, God of blessing. Amen.

Go

Walk with God, trusting in God’s promises.

Be convinced that God will do what God has promised to do.

Live in that trust, in that conviction, in that faith.

Walk with God and be trustworthy.