2. Feeling Emotion
    Eccl 3: 2 a time to be born and a time to die,     a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3     a time to kill and a time to heal,     a time to tear down and a time to build, 4     a time to weep and a time to laugh,     a time to mourn and a time to dance,
Luke 6:21 Blessed are you who hunger now,     for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now,     for you will laugh. All Bible verses NIV

3. Last Week The American Dream doesn’t fulfill
The lie of our culture is “If I just had __________ I would be happy.”
People who have a great life can still feel it is all meaningless
God has designed a cycle to life
Jesus experienced suffering “for the joy set before Him.”

4. God has designed a cycle to life: A Time to laugh
Gen 21:1 Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.
6 Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” 7 And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

5. But what is the rest of the story?

6. About the Bible The writers of the Bible tell it like it is.
People do bad things, sin, make mistakes
People experience full range of emotions
Sometimes raw and hard to read
The Bible does NOT tell “and they all lived happily ever after” stories

7. Gen 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children
Gen 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

8. Sarah (later Sarai)
Did not anticipate the emotions that would surround her plan
Began to blame others for her hurt
Suffering first is caused by God
Next Abram is responsible
The slave went into your arms
Abraham wisely doesn't accept her blame
Frustration displayed itself in abuse

9. Gen 16:4 When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 “Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

10. Waiting and the accompanying suffering last a long time
Abraham was 75 when started; now 99
Be willing to head down a road that God seems to be opening;
Laughter of disbelief happens
“Yeah right”
Skepticism; Sarah will have a child at 90?

11. Gen 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. 2 Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”... 3 Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations...
15 God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

12. 17 Abraham fell facedown;...
he laughed...
and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 18 And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”
19 Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him

13. Then the improbable happens
Gen 21:1 Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised. 2 Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. 3 Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. 4 When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. 5 Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” 7 And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

14. The improbable happens
Mat 19:24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

15. The improbable happens
“I love the word Impossible” Ann Kiemel

16. The improbable happens

17. God did the improbable He raised Jesus from the dead
Acts 2: 22Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
Not impossible for God; just improbable

18. God has designed a cycle
Laughter will come
Hard times last a while
A break comes along
Sorrow lasts
Laughter comes
Mourning
Dance

19. So What? There is a laughter that comes when...
God does the improbable
A solution for the problem from outside the norm
An answer to prayer that catches you off guard; may not even realize it
You have tried to “fix it” and it no matter what the problem got worse, dragged on,
God comes through with a simple solution, that couldn't possibly be...!

20. Ps 130:1 I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. 2 Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. 3 You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit. 4 Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name.

21. weeping may stay for the night,
5 For his anger lasts only a moment,
but his favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
but (joy) rejoicing comes in the morning.