“A Future with Hope” by Pastor Nate
This week my oldest daughter Evelyn turns 11! I can’t believe that she has been a part of my life for eleven years already!
As I was going through some files this week I came across a devotional I wrote 11 years ago as my wife and I were waiting to welcome Evelyn into the world. The reflections and themes of this particular reflection seemed relevant given all that’s taking place in the world these days, so I offer it to you as the devotion this week:
I don’t know if you knew this, and I hope I’m not spoiling the surprise but… my wife is pregnant! Very pregnant in fact. And with each passing day, the two of us grow more and more excited to welcome our first child into the world.
We’ve decided not to find out the gender of the child beforehand and so there is even more anticipation– will we soon have a son or daughter? When will the child finally say goodbye to the womb and hello to the world? What will he/she look like? Is there more to parenting than not getting sleep? (Side note: The only parenting advice anyone has given me to this point is “get some sleep while you can”)
As each day passes and we move closer and closer to answering these questions the anticipation, excitement, anxiety, and love for this entire event grows.
But in the midst of all the wonder of becoming a father, life still goes on around me. And there seems to be far less joy and excitement and love growing elsewhere in the world. Close friends are dealing with incredible pain, congregation members are confronted with daunting circumstances, wars are being fought, hate is being spread, and sorrow as a whole is perpetuated. Parallel to all my excitement for the future runs all this agony and longing for hope.
“All around us, we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are hearing for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.” – Romans 8:22-25 taken from The Message
How are we to hold together the tension of the future? How do we make sense of the simultaneous longing for an end to pain and the anticipation of the new birth? How do we understand a world filled with death and yet filled with new life?
We rest and wait in the Spirit. And in the tension of waiting, the Spirit is present with us, suffering and celebrating alongside us, pulling us into God’s future where there is boundless hope.
May the tension of our present reality be filled with the comfort and patience of the Holy Spirit. And may we all discover God’s hope-filled future. Amen.
