Heavenly Minded Mom by Katie Bennett

Author:Katie Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Published: 2018-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Seeing Suffering in Light of Eternity

Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

—John 16:20-22

The reality of worldwide suffering (oppression, terrorism, abuse, illness, and poverty) grieves me deeply. I hear the stories. I see the news. I watch it unfold firsthand. In those moments, I ache for Jesus to return.

However, the good-news-truth is that all this suffering will one day be nothing more than a distant memory. Though the moments and days and years may seem unbearably long, they will very soon be eclipsed in the glorious presence of God as we, His followers, are swept up into eternity. As a mother knows, the pain of labor is forgotten almost as soon as the child is born and is replaced by new life, hope, triumph, joy, and an inexplicable chest-bursting love. In the same way, the seemingly unbearable pain and sorrow of this world will give birth to irrevocable glory as this present reality gives way to the full expression of God’s glorious, eternal kingdom. This is our hope.

What’s more, without suffering we get cozy with our life on earth. Without the harsh reminder suffering provides, we become content with our own sufficiency, status quo, and even sin. Suffering is the thing that turns us inside out before God, sets our gaze and hope on eternity, and teaches us to pray and long for a right-side-up reality. Suffering is the thing that undoes us in ways nothing else could. It’s the thing that makes us soft clay in the hands of the Master Potter, and the thing that shows us our deep need for healing and redemption.

While we must feel the weight and pain of these realities for now as a result of sin, they will not have the last word. If we believe God for the unseen future we call eternity, He promises that we will be renewed inwardly, day by day. Hoping in heaven and putting feet to this promise is a glorious expression of confidence in what God has said to be true.

The reality of suffering presents an opportunity to exercise trust in God’s eternal reality, unchanging promises, and absolute goodness. When we do not understand, and yet choose to trust, He is glorified in our lives!

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