Remember the game ‘Chinese Whispers’ you likely played at a birthday party when you were a kid? If you’re scanning your memory trying to think back to a few decades ago (like I did), here’s a little reminder of the game: A word or phrase is whispered from one person to another till the final hearer repeats the message to the whole group.

The last message is usually as different from the original as green tea is from hot chocolate. Of course, the fun part of the game is when the final message is remarkably distorted. The group groans in fake agony and investigates when and how the message began to unravel and morph from English to “Chinese.”

Perhaps God didn’t want His message to get distorted. At least that’s one reason why, after telling Abraham His POA a couple of times, God decides to deliver His message straight to Sarah. Maybe He didn’t want the news of their soon-to-be baby to get “Chinese Whispered” to Sarah via Abraham. If Abraham and Sarah were anything like my husband and me, she would have asked him about his encounter with God and he would have answered with a generic, “You know, it was fine. The usual.” Maybe that was the reason. Maybe not. Either way, God decides to meet Sarah on home turf and share the message of Isaac’s birth with her.

Here’s the recap of the story from Genesis 18: One hot and sunny afternoon, God sends three angels (appearing as men) to visit Abraham and Sarah. Abraham, being a good host, rushes to get the guys some pints of cold beer. Well, not quite. He makes sure his guests are settled in, asks Sarah to bake bread, and makes sure there’s steak for lunch.

The text goes on to say that while the angels ate, Abraham “stood near them.” Sarah, on the other hand, stood at the entrance of the tent. As was the custom of the time, it was expected that Sarah wouldn’t hang out with the male guests but, it seems also to me, that she wanted to put some distance between herself and her celestial visitors. Yet she was still curious about what they had to say, so she pressed her ears to the canvas of the tent and listened in.

When the angel knew that Sarah was within earshot, he delivered God’s message: “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.”

Sarah heard his words and went, “Yeah, right.” Or to be more precise, she “laughed to herself as she thought, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?”” (Gen 18: 12)

She was hearing God’s words straight from the angel’s mouth, without any distortion or untruth. But the filter of her mind caused her to dismiss and debunk it. She laughed with cynicism. She was close to 90 years old. Would her wrinkled hands weary from kneading bread for her visitors soon hold a wiggling baby? Clearly, the voice of reason, logic, and science said otherwise.

And, yet, we know the story. True to His Word, the following year, Sarah and Abraham are blessed with a baby boy.

There are many takeaways from this narrative. But here’s one that struck me today and maybe it will resonate with you too. When we choose to keep at a “safe” distance from God, His truth gets drowned out by the story we tell ourselves. When we choose to stay within our tents, His Word gets obscured by the noise of the world. When we are merely curious about what God says, we don’t leave room for conviction.

Even though God went straight to Sarah to convey His promise (rather than using Abraham as a go-between), she chose to stay in the “safety” of the tent. She chose to merely eavesdrop rather than engage. She chose to trust the narrative that hinged on what she could see rather than trust the unchanging truth of God’s Word.

And yet, in His grace, God confronted and convicted her and then blessed her according to His promise.

Friends, we have a God who is up close and personal. He comes knocking at our heart’s door, but the question is do we stay behind the entrance of the tent? Or do we come near to Him as He draws near to us?

May we step out of the metaphorical tents today. Perhaps it’s a tent of unbelief because of past circumstances, a tent of fear of the unknown, one of self-reliance, or a tent of cynicism, one of pride, or merely a tent of distractedness. If one of those “tents” describes where you’re at right now, maybe you could simply pray and ask God to help you step out of that tent to hear His voice and trust what He says.

He comes to meet us on our turf, but we ought to meet Him on His terms.

 

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