Every child is born a tiny bundle of great potentiality. That baby might grow up to be the scientist who discovers the cure for cancer, or a President that leads us to our finest days, or a preacher used to bring about another spiritual awakening, or a missionary that shakes a continent with the Gospel.
We don’t know. What we do know is that the birth of hope requires a lot of pain. In case you didn’t know, the stork doesn’t really fly in and drop a baby in a basket on our doorstep. The closest thing a mother will ever experience to death without dying is the trauma to her body of bringing new life into the world. Yesterday, we honored mothers through the observance of Mother’s Day—and we did well to do so. We are here because of what they suffered in carrying us, nourishing us and birthing us. For most, that wasn’t the end of their pain! Children can continue to hurt—though the pain is usually transferred from the womb to the heart in later years.
Understand this—there can be no birth of hope apart from the bearing of hurt. This physical reality provides an abiding spiritual principle: first there is the cross and then the crown; first, humiliation and then exaltation; first suffering and then glory. That is what we observe in Romans 8:22-25:
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
23 Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.
24 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
This week we will follow our spiritual obstetrician, Paul the Apostle, as he enters the Biblical maternity ward and delivers to us the birth of hope.
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