When will we find what we’re looking for?
Mar 1, 2010
Case for Grace - part twenty-two in a study from the book of Romans
Mike Gaudet
We look in different places, in different ways . . .
. . . but we’re all looking for the same thing.
Contentment!
When will we find what we’re looking for?
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Romans 8:22-25
Childbirth is painful.
Not just in the physical realm - it’s true in the spiritual realm as well. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
This world is like a womb.
The process of conceiving and birthing spiritual life is compared to a woman in labor. The "groaning" of women delivering children into this temporal world is compared to the “groaning” of “creation” delivering children of God into the eternal world.
When the world is “full term,” God’s children will be delivered into eternal existence . . .
. . . and then the world will stop groaning.
On this side of eternity, we are also in labor. We are spirit beings. Our physical body is a womb. We “wait eagerly” for “the redemption of our bodies” - for God’s Spirit to resurrect our mortal bodies and make them immortal. We “groan inwardly,” longing for our spirit to come to rest eternally within its immortal body.
We will never be fully “at home” in our physical bodies.
We cannot experience enough satisfaction to silence our groaning. This side of eternity, we have to “hope” for what we can neither see nor possess . “For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all.”
We imagine that if we do what God wants, He gives us what we want. This is not possible . . . at least not in this life. If God gave us all that we wanted to have, we wouldn’t need hope. “Who hopes for what he already has?” In this life, God gives us enough to “whet our appetites” but not enough to satisfy them. He does not give us enough to eliminate the need to “hope for what we do not yet have.”
When life disappoints us, we assume that someone’s to blame. “It’s my fault!” “It’s their fault!” “It’s God’s fault!”
Unfulfilled longings don’t mean that somebody did something wrong.
Unfulfilled longings simply mean that hope is still required because we’re not “home” yet!
On the near side of the grave, we will struggle with the tension of frustrated desires. We will not have everything we want to have. We will not do everything we want to do. Without hope to buoy us, we sink deeper and deeper into discontentment and resentment. Hope helps us to wait patiently for what we do not yet have. “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
On the far side of the grave, the Spirit of God will enable our eternal spirits to come to rest in immortal bodies that are free of mortal constraints . . .
. . . then we’ll find the contentment we’re looking for.
. . . then our groaning will cease.