LATE-LIFE BABY

You can't rush God. He promised Abraham and Sarah a baby, and they had a baby! When she was 100 years old! Apart from Sarah, the record holder known to science is 70! (The youngest mother known is 5! She was the result of a rare syndrome that brings on very early puberty. Other early births have been known to a few other girls under 10.)

Can you blame the pair for their difficulty in belief? Thomas had just been told his friends had seen a dead man walking. Not surprising he said, “Sure you did.” And three strange guys show up and tell Abe and his wife, that same elderly wife who had traveled all over the Levant with him, was going to give birth. They both laughed. But God had the last laugh – if He wanted it. She did indeed conceive and gave Abraham a son at an age he should be having great-great- grandsons!

Have you noticed how often the Bible tells of a child being born from God's intervention? Off hand, I can think of Samuel's mother promising to give her son back to the Lord. In Isaiah 14:7 the prophet predicts the salvation of Israel before a woman can conceive, bear, and wean a child. (The same prophecy was used in a heightened way to predict the Virgin Birth.) And then there were John the Baptist and his cousin, Jesus.

Could that mean that God's purpose lies behind every child? I think so, and I've never found someone who failed to find God's mission for them if they sincerely searched. It means we're unique. God has a purpose for you like for no one else. Have you found that purpose?

And what must this say about abortion?