“And Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelek and his wives and his handmaidens and they bore children because Yahweh had completely worked restraint throughout all the wombs in the house of Abimelek over this thing of Sarah, the wife of Abraham.”

(Genesis 20:18)

As we discussed in the passages above, God protects his own, and here he not only preserved the chastity of Sarah, but he also closed wombs of all of the people under the spiritual authority of Abimelek. What is striking about this is that it helps set a timetable for how long Sarah was in the house of Abimelek, for the barrenness of the women could not have been known were there not a sizable enough period of time for the young women to realize that they were not unable to get pregnant. At the very least, that places Sarah in Abimelek’s house for a month but more likely than not, as people sometimes don’t notice their pregnancy right away, it was a period of several months to a year before it would be utterly confirmed that no one who lived under Abilelek’s authority.

Often we do not see the timetable of events in scripture. Often one chapter ends and there are several years that pass before the beginning of the following chapter begins. More importantly for us is that sometimes we can be impatient with God’s timing on events. We want everything and we want it “now!” Thankfully, God does not exist to satisfy our whims—how many things we have prayed for we have been thankful that have not come to pass! We exist to serve God. That is the beginning and the end of our role here on earth—we shall serve him by seeking His glory over and above that of this world. It is in that glory we will find our peace and joy—it will be found nowhere else. At the same time, we will also experience that glory only in God’s timing and not in our own. Sarah was confident in her preservation and rescue. Shall we also not be the same? How many times has God preserved us in our own experience of this world already? He will continue to preserve his people.