Labour pains

I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. (verses 18-21)

Read Romans 8:18-25

I remember sitting beside my wife while she was in labour. Watching her painful and exhausting ordeal, I prayed that she would not be kept waiting long. On another occasion, I was at the bedside of an elderly woman who was close to death. I asked her if she would like me to pray for her. She looked at me, her face tired but at peace, ‘Yes’, she answered, ‘pray that the Lord would not keep me waiting long’.

Waiting for heaven may seem painful and never-ending at times. St Paul likened it to the painful wait a mother endures while she is in labour. Many mothers would know the joy at the birth of a healthy child — joy that often outshines the exhausting and painful labour. The dying woman was waiting with eager longing for the Lord Jesus to return and bring her the glory, freedom and redemption she had longed for.

Your waiting will not be forever. And the joy that Jesus has prepared for you outshines anything you have ever known in this life.

I thank you, God, for the gift of life. Remind me always of the everlasting joy that awaits me when this life ends and I enter into your glory. Amen.

by Simon Cooper, in ‘Renewed Hope for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2000)

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