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Luís Alberto Alves
According to Medicine, sterility is the impossibility of a couple being unable to have children. But there are other types of sterility. Businessmen, even those who are skilled and have great knowledge of their market, can never get out of the rut of a negative balance in their cash book.
In the sports field, there are excellent soccer, volleyball and basketball players who have never felt the sweet taste of wearing the national team jersey, much less lived the wonderful experience of participating in the Olympic Games.
The world of music is full of artists, male and female singers with beautiful voices, but they never took off. Even though they recorded refined albums, success eluded them, trapping them in the terrible prison of oblivion.
Society
Life is full of people locked in the prison of sterility, even those endowed with great knowledge and vast experience. In the Bible, the testimony of the Word of God, some people are described as sterile, in a society where women unable to get pregnant were classified as cursed.
However, our God, creator of Heaven and Earth, and everything that exists in the invisible and visible world, is a master at transforming a scene of sterility into a landscape of fertility. After all, He does not know the word impossible, which only exists in the dictionaries of men.
The book of Genesis, 21, 2-7, tells the story of Sarah, Abraham's wife, who gave birth to a son when her husband was already an old man and she was already elderly, in addition to being sterile. Sarah was the mother of Isaac, the son of the promise, whom the Lord had told Abraham that he would be the father of multitudes, as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sands on the beaches of the whole world.
Father
It is estimated that there are 2.3 billion Christians in the world (including Evangelicals, Roman Catholics and Orthodox Catholics), 1.57 billion Muslims and 13 million Jews. The sum of this multitude comes close to 3.8 billion people who have Abraham as their father of faith. God said that he would be the father of multitudes when he was 75 years old and Sarah was a barren wife.
It takes a lot of faith in God to hold on to this promise. To look at a desolate scene and believe that the dry grass will give way to a beautiful green plantation, with trees full of sweet fruits. Something visionary. Or someone completely crazy, to the point of seeing water where there is only desert.
But God granted Sarah the condition to become pregnant at the age of 90, reversing the situation of sterility into fertility. Already old, she felt the joy of breastfeeding her long-awaited and beloved son Isaac. A few years later, this young man would marry Rebekah, as described in Genesis 25/27, another barren wife, to whom the Lord gave the joy of giving birth to the twins Esau and Jacob.
Joy
During the journey of life, in Genesis 46/19, Jacob would fall in love with Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban. Unfortunately, his wife's beauty did not immediately guarantee him the joy of being a father, as happened several times with Leah, for whom Jacob felt no love. God allowed Rachel to be the mother of Joseph and then Benjamin. Once again, the Lord transforms sterility into fertility.
But this story does not end there. In 2 Kings, 4:8/32, we have the drama of the Shunammite woman, already old, next to her husband, without children. And the prophet announces that this couple will have a son in their home. Because of the situation, the Shunammite called the prophet a liar. However, the Lord transformed her into a fertile womb and changed the family's sterility.
In 1 Samuel 1:9/4, Elkanah's wife Hannah, desperately crying out to God for 25 years to have a child, had her request granted. She was the mother of the boy Samuel, who later became a prophet, judge and priest, responsible for anointing the boy David as the future king of Israel. God went further by allowing Hannah to be the mother of more children.
Desert
In Luke 1:6/7, another elderly couple, Elizabeth and Zechariah, are blessed by God, with a woman, without medical conditions, becoming pregnant and from her womb coming John the Baptist, who became known as the Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness. A cousin of Jesus Christ, she had the honor of baptizing him and paving the way for his short ministry of 3.5 years, but which impacted the world.
All of the texts cited above demonstrate that God is an expert in transforming a desert into an area full of fresh water. Situations that, in the eyes of men, cannot be reversed. In other words, it is impossible to present any picture of change.
Christians need to have faith that Jesus Christ likes to take situations of sterility and transform them into fertility in any area of our lives. Perhaps you are classified as sterile in some segment and have even thought about throwing in the towel, giving up following the Lord and returning to the rotten world from which Christ once rescued you. Believe me, your sterility will be transformed into fertility for the Glory of God.
Luis Alberto Alves is a pastor
