All creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) Romans 8:21-25 (NLT).
Saint Paul was right. Like all creation, we who are believers groan for freedom from death and decay. And though we groan, we do not give way to despair because when we were saved, God poured precious hope into our hearts. But it is not easy to keep our hope alive. Bewildering questions can weaken our hope. Why do men suffer? If God is good, why does he allow us to suffer?
Paul helps us answers these questions in his Letter to the Romans. He reminds us that we were created to worship, love and serve God. But we have worshipped created things rather than God. Our disobedience separated us from God. God in his mercy sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins. And when we surrender to Jesus, God plants hope in our hearts.
Paul describes all creation as waiting, “on the tiptoe of expectation,” for God to rescue us from death and decay. As Christians, we hope for the new bodies God has promised us even while we are groaning for freedom from our suffering.
In “The Problem of Pain,” C. S. Lewis presents one of the most bewildering questions of the ages: “If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness or power, or both. This is the problem of pain in its simplest form.“
Lewis makes a powerful point when he says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Lewis helps us understand why God allows suffering when he says, “God is conforming us into the image of His Son — and that requires suffering.” It helps, when we are suffering, to remember that our Lord Jesus suffered also, willingly dying on the cross so our sins could be forgiven. Suffering is necessary if we are to be conformed to the image of Christ.
God gives us the freedom to live in despair — or to live in hope. I choose to live in hope. When my heart is heavy because my friends are suffering, I go to this eighth chapter of Romans and rejoice with Paul that nothing — nothing at all — can separate us from the love of God which we find in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Remembering who God is helps us keep hope alive. Paul tells us that one of God’s names is “the God of hope.” This beautiful truth is found in Romans 15:13:
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
What good news. The evidence that proves God is the God of hope is found in two awesome stories in the Bible.
- the Father running to embrace the prodigal son (Luke 15) and
- Jesus offering breakfast to Peter on the beach (John 21).
When Jesus describes the prodigal’s father as “running to embrace” his wayward son, he is revealing that our heavenly Father is eager to welcome home repentant sinners. When Jesus cooked breakfast for Peter and the disciples, he was saying to Peter: “Your sins are forgiven; now let me help you fulfill God’s will for your life.”
The prodigal son and Peter were “overflowing with hope” as God bathed them in the cleansing water of forgiveness. The God of hope can do that for us too. He can fill us so full of joy and peace that we will overflow with hope.
How does God fill us with overflowing hope? He puts persons of hope in our lives. Recall the persons of hope God has placed in your life and give God thanks for each one.
When he was a young boy, the great painter Benjamin West decided to paint a picture of his sister while his mother was not at home. He got out the bottles of ink and started, but soon had an awful mess. His mother returned. She saw the mess. But instead of scolding him, she picked up the portrait and declared, “What a beautiful picture of your sister.” Then she kissed him. Later in life, West said, “With that kiss I became a painter.” Hope was born with that kiss!
In 1849, Nathaniel Hawthorne was dismissed from his government job. He went home in despair. His wife listened to his tale of woe, set pen and ink on the table, lit the fire, put her arms around his shoulders and said, “Now you will be able to write your novel.” Hawthorne did — and literature was enriched with “The Scarlet Letter.” I know how Nathaniel felt for I was married for 68 years to a woman like his wife — my dear Dean.
God gives us the freedom to discover new persons of hope. We can choose to live around persons of hope. We can spend time with people who say, “Well done!” rather than, “You could have done better.”
God invites us to be persons of hope. To do so we must give up anger, resentment, guilt, complaining and worry. Clinging to these attitudes leaves us in the pit of despair. We overcome despair by choosing to live in hope.
My first son David died in my arms, a few weeks after his third birthday. All these years since his death I have longed to hold him again in my arms. And I cling to the hope that a loving God will give me that joy one day. If I as a father have such a longing, surely our heavenly Father has an even greater longing to gather all his children in his loving arms.
I was angry with God for allowing a three-year-old boy suffer and die. I was ready to drink from the fountain of despair. But God sent a man who saved me from that, a man who told me, “God hurts like you hurt.” That piercing thought gave me hope that God was indeed a Father who suffered with his children. That glimmer of hope began overflowing the more I trusted and obeyed Jesus.
Whatever your circumstances may be, you need not surrender to despair. You can live in hope that beyond this veil of tears there is eternal joy and peace reserved for all believers. Putting your life daily in the hands of Jesus is the ultimate way to give up groaning in exchange for overflowing hope.
