*This post is a continuation of the (now defunct) Blogger Small Group discussion on the book of Romans. If you want to join in (please!!), just read this chapter in Romans and post your reflections on your blog (link back!) or in the comments here.
So last time, I wrote about how our obligation is to “put to death the misdeeds” of our sinful nature. And I said that it’s not the easiest thing to do. As we continue in Romans, Paul describes what it is that happens as we submit these things to God.
Romans 8:18-27
Please don’t gloss over this: our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. That means my debilitating spells with depression, suffering from both addiction and trying to beat it, emotional turmoil or any other mental health issue, sickness, betrayal, abandonment, financial stressors, child rearing challenges so great you feel like they may crush you, relationship stress, loneliness in a crowd: NONE of these things will even show up on the radar of our well-being when our future glory has been revealed.
In other words, when we get where we are going, it’s not going to matter one bit to us how hard the journey to get there seemed.
And it is hard. Paul writes that ALL of creation suffers from it, groaning as if in childbirth from the struggle. Even we who have the assurance of the Holy Spirit in our lives (see verse 23) groan inwardly and wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies and souls. What does that tell me? If God says that all the earth suffers during the wait, if even those who have the power of the Holy Spirit are not exempt, that means the struggle is more intense than anything I can possibly come up with to describe it.
Can I just stop here and say that I just realized this is why I fight so hard to keep my hope high and my faith strong? If I go by the inward and outward groaning of creation, my heart fades and so does my faith. I can’t survive without the hope that the harder this journey is the more glorious heaven is going to feel. Everything that I have that I value, I have had to “suffer” in some way to get it, keep it, grow it, or nurture it. But enjoying it is so sweet now. YET, this is only temporal life, not the eternal on which my main hope is set. How much more so with heaven?
We need to understand something about our experience here on earth: we may not be excluded from the suffering but we do have the Most High as advocate. Paul writes that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses and sufferings. In fact, even if we are weakened by them to the point of not even knowing how or what to pray, He will intercede for us…”with groans that words cannot express.” We do not have the language to describe what the Spirit does for us. Think about that for a while. There. Are. NO. Words. And even better, we are told that not only is the Spirit mediating this intense need from us to the Father…He does so in perfect harmony with God’s will for our lives.
Recently I had a conversation with a good friend. In that conversation she described how she is taking a new angle on prayer over the things that she is suffering through. You see, we are all guilty of praying according to our will. Aren’t we? When we can form the words to take to God our sufferings, we usually take to Him our idea of the solution too. Often only one (the suffering or the solution) is God’s will, and I’ll give you a big fat guess which one it is most often in my life! So my friend is now just taking to Him the one. “This hurts.” Period. Not “This hurts and here’s how I want you to fix it”. I like this openness to letting the Spirit work in our situational sufferings because I have the faith enough to know that He’s not going to contradict God’s will for us as He intercedes.
So it is this hope and this advocacy that carries me through as I am carrying out my obligation to put to death the misdeeds of my flesh. Next time, in the final section of Romans 8, we’ll talk about how all of this works for the good for those who love Him.
*This post is a continuation of the (now defunct) Blogger Small Group discussion on the book of Romans. If you want to join in (please!!), just read this chapter in Romans and post your reflections on your blog (link back!) or in the comments here.
So last time, I wrote about how our obligation is to “put to death the misdeeds” of our sinful nature. And I said that it’s not the easiest thing to do. As we continue in Romans, Paul describes what it is that happens as we submit these things to God.
Romans 8:18-27
Please don’t gloss over this: our present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. That means my debilitating spells with depression, suffering from both addiction and trying to beat it, emotional turmoil or any other mental health issue, sickness, betrayal, abandonment, financial stressors, child rearing challenges so great you feel like they may crush you, relationship stress, loneliness in a crowd: NONE of these things will even show up on the radar of our well-being when our future glory has been revealed.
In other words, when we get where we are going, it’s not going to matter one bit to us how hard the journey to get there seemed.
And it is hard. Paul writes that ALL of creation suffers from it, groaning as if in childbirth from the struggle. Even we who have the assurance of the Holy Spirit in our lives (see verse 23) groan inwardly and wait eagerly for the redemption of our bodies and souls. What does that tell me? If God says that all the earth suffers during the wait, if even those who have the power of the Holy Spirit are not exempt, that means the struggle is more intense than anything I can possibly come up with to describe it.
Can I just stop here and say that I just realized this is why I fight so hard to keep my hope high and my faith strong? If I go by the inward and outward groaning of creation, my heart fades and so does my faith. I can’t survive without the hope that the harder this journey is the more glorious heaven is going to feel. Everything that I have that I value, I have had to “suffer” in some way to get it, keep it, grow it, or nurture it. But enjoying it is so sweet now. YET, this is only temporal life, not the eternal on which my main hope is set. How much more so with heaven?
We need to understand something about our experience here on earth: we may not be excluded from the suffering but we do have the Most High as advocate. Paul writes that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses and sufferings. In fact, even if we are weakened by them to the point of not even knowing how or what to pray, He will intercede for us…”with groans that words cannot express.” We do not have the language to describe what the Spirit does for us. Think about that for a while. There. Are. NO. Words. And even better, we are told that not only is the Spirit mediating this intense need from us to the Father…He does so in perfect harmony with God’s will for our lives.
Recently I had a conversation with a good friend. In that conversation she described how she is taking a new angle on prayer over the things that she is suffering through. You see, we are all guilty of praying according to our will. Aren’t we? When we can form the words to take to God our sufferings, we usually take to Him our idea of the solution too. Often only one (the suffering or the solution) is God’s will, and I’ll give you a big fat guess which one it is most often in my life! So my friend is now just taking to Him the one. “This hurts.” Period. Not “This hurts and here’s how I want you to fix it”. I like this openness to letting the Spirit work in our situational sufferings because I have the faith enough to know that He’s not going to contradict God’s will for us as He intercedes.
So it is this hope and this advocacy that carries me through as I am carrying out my obligation to put to death the misdeeds of my flesh. Next time, in the final section of Romans 8, we’ll talk about how all of this works for the good for those who love Him.