My mood this morning feels like it was tailored to match the color of the skies when I woke up (although as I glance outside now, I see peeks of blue sky). My morning perusal of facebook friend updates seemed to turn up an inordinate number of references to rain -- on the east coast, in Canada, here at home.
Not to mention ongoing news of the cyclone's aftermath in Myanmar, a massive earthquake in China, and storms/tornadoes in the midwest.
And that's not to mention the storms people are going through in their personal lives. One hit me particularly hard this morning. One of those, "oh, that makes me feel sick" bits of news. I guess I can just pray for grace like rain.
Now feels like an appropriate time to pull out some quotes from the copy of chapter 11 of A Quest for More chapter 11 that I have sitting on my desk: "Groaning."
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It has been suggested by some that between coming to Christ and entering the final kingdom the default language of every Christian should be groaning. Paul says it this way in Romans 8:22-25.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of
childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have
the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our
adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.
But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But
if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
Notice the logic of this passage. We are supposed to groan because there are things that we have been promised but do not yet have. We are supposed to groan because the full expression of God's kingdom has not yet come. We are supposed to groan because we are not yet all that God shed the blood of his Son for us to become. We are supposed to groan because the temporary pleasures of this physical world do not satisfy us; they always leave a void in our hearts. We are supposed to groan because in every situation an dcircumstance we see the damage that sin has done and is doing. We are supposed to groan because we recognize how we each give into the temptation to see in the physical world what we cna only find in the Lord and what will only be fulfilled in eternity. This side of eternity, groaning is meant to be the default language of the big kingdom." (Paul David Tripp, A Quest for More 136-7)
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3 comments:
I actually drove to work this morning wishing it would rain more. I love the rain. I'd be dissapointed (if there is such a thing) if the weather didn't change in heaven...or perhaps perfectly represented God's power...but without the destruction.
Iron Man was a good movie.
But I hear you. Today's kind of stinky overall.
The fall was way before the flood...it came with the first act of disobedience (Adam and Eve). Just because there was no rain before the flood does not mean the fall came after that. Care to clarify?
Sorry, anonymous, I got my prepositions mixed up (another sign of a Monday morning). I meant that rain and the flood were AFTER the fall. That probably makes more sense.
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