Romans 8:17-39

"Carry on my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more!" Kansas

I wonder how many times all of us have said, one way or the other; "Is it worth it?" Is this life with its ills, disappointments and difficulties really worth the heart ache we experience - some of us on a daily basis?

One of the most encouraging places in scripture is chapter 8 of Romans. Its one of those passages that remind us why life is worth living. It reminds us that we are not alone in this world - that there is someone who actually cares and He just so happens to be the creator of the universe. In the particular passage we're looking at this week, we see that the redemption and restoring of humanity by God is also extended to the world as a whole. The earth and all that is in it is bound up in God's plan of salvation. Yes! God is interested in the well being of all that He created. [Suddenly Paul McCartney and Green Peace don't seem so strange after all!]

Paul uses some very interesting and revealing language to identify how the earth struggles in its present pain. He calls it "groaning;" Not general sounds of "groaning" but the particular sound of groaning during child birth. There are few things to notice in terms of the creation [all things created by God] that come alive because of the analogy Paul uses.

First, the groaning is the result of the present struggle between our present limitations as humans on earth and the life of Christ that has come alive in us now and will be fulfilled at the end of time. It is an "already but not yet" struggle of a sense of love and wholeness in us and yet a sense of sin and disjointedness in the social context of life. It's that "groaning" that we experience when we know that something can be better than it presently is. This could be such feelings we have of wanting the AIDS epidemic in Africa to be over so that the suffering is over for its people; Or it is knowing that most people love their children but there are a few that don't; Or, even closer to home, is knowing and wanting to do good and coming short of it in our actions and in our thoughts.

Paul says that the Holy Spirit helps us in such a struggle. The Spirit takes our pain and puts it in the path of hope so that suffering works toward the longing for what will be better in the future. Needless to say, the Spirit puts pain and suffering in the context of what will be, not in the context of present limitations. Paul clearly spells out in other passages that the Spirit is our 'inheritance' of what is to come. [Ephesians chapter 1] In that sense, the Spirit prays to the Father in our "groanings" from a position in the future! Looking at our suffering from the vantage point of where we will be in the future, [a place of no suffering] He is able to pray differently than we are. In a very real sense He prays with 20/20 hindsight. The Spirit has the knowledge of a positive outcome even though the outcome is not presently fulfilled in our lives.

This is such a comforting thing to know. All those decisions that are so difficult to make, the difficulties that are so difficult to live through because the future is unknown have a perspective of hope through the Spirit that prays through our sufferings on our behalf connecting us with the eternal life that the Father gives through Jesus life. I remember an analogy from a time when my oldest daughter was a toddler that explains this wonderful vantage point. My wife was in a mall with her one day and there was a crawling contest for toddlers going on with the prize being a Fisher Price easel. She thought she would give it a go with our daughter. So the mothers lined up these toddlers at a starting line and then ran to the finish line to cheer them on. As the toddlers started crawling towards their mothers, my wife held up my daughter's bottle and my daughter made a "B-Line" for the finish beating all the other toddlers! My daughter's eye on the bottle in my wife's hand was enough motivation for her to win the race. The Spirit is our motivation to endure the journey we are on with the hope that at the end we will get the prize of freedom from pain and suffering. Unfortunately, life at times is much more tumultuous than a simple race for a prize. Sometimes its like Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark and his many precarious near death experiences.

Second, the creation [all things created by God] feels the same struggle. It's eyes - as Paul so personifies with the language he uses - are on us and what will happen. When humanity hits the finish line this will mean victory and fulfillment for the creation as well. The important point of Paul's analogy of childbirth is that because of the Spirit helping us, our pain is good pain, not bad pain. It's the kind of pain that when its endured it will result in something so wonderful that it takes your breath away. Like a mother in labour who finally delivers a baby, so will be the joy of enduring our pain and suffering in light of what it will lead to in the future! There will be a time when all is right with the world and all our inclinations are for good. There will be a time when evil, and so pain and suffering, will no longer exist.

The greatest thing of all is that there is nothing that can keep us from experiencing this. We are locked into relationship with God because of what Jesus has done both to us and for us. We are kept in relationship with God because of the never ending work of the Spirit to draw us ever closer to God the Father by making us more like Christ. Even death cannot keep us from experiencing this. God has swallowed up death and turned it into life. The hard part for us is believing that this is true, and yet, it is true!

Questions to ask this week:

1. What part does the world have in our relationship with God?

2. Why have we historically ignored the connection God has given us with the world [the creation]?

3. Take a difficulty that presently exists and run it through the "groaning" scenario that Paul mentions? What is God's perspective on that difficulty?

4. What is the best possible outcome you can imagine for the troubles and difficulties you may be facing right now? What is the outcome that God sees?