Hey everyone. I hope this finds you doing well in your life and you are in Gods will for today. During this time of no order and some suffering while others prosper, it is very easy to ask why aren’t we prospering. Why aren’t the sons and daughters of God prospering the same as the pagans and nonbelievers in the world? Well that has multiple answers to be honest and some of them you may not like.
Jesus knew they wanted to question Him, so He said to them, “Are you asking one another about what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see Me; again a little while and you will see Me’? 20 “I assure you: You will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. 21 When a woman is in labor she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. 22 So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will rob you of your joy. 23 In that day you will not ask Me anything. “I assure you: Anything you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.
John 16:19-23
Hcsb Bible
Now one of the things that we need to understand before anything else is that Jesus NEVER once said that we are guaranteed a great and prosperous life. He actually guaranteed the opposite in that we as followers of him would go through trials and tribulations. So before we get our hopes up, that’s the default that we should have in mind. Not the default of health, wealth and happiness, but rather pain, brokenness and sorrow.
So now that we are reading the passage for today, we need to look at a few things. Why is brokenness and sorrow our default that we are guaranteed to go through and why did Jesus use a woman going through labor as an example. Well for one in the context of this verse, Jesus is talking to his disciples about his soon departure and that they would be said about that and he would be gone for three days before rising again. Then he would come back and they would have joy that no one could steal from them.
But to apply it to our lives, we have to understand the disciples did go through a troubling time after his death. Their lone reason for living for the past 3.5 years had just left them pretty much. So now they were asking “what do we do?”. All of them went back to their normal lives that they had before Jesus, but you have to imagine they were distressed and upset that Jesus had died. They were suffering alone too. The society at large was not going to help them through this since the society at large was the one that murdered Jesus.
One of the reasons why Jesus could have used a woman going through labor is that she has to go through this alone for the most part. Yes, there can be doctors there that can make sure she doesn’t die or anything but she will ultimately have to go through the terrible pain and trial that is bringing a baby into the world. Also remember that at this time in history, doctors didn’t really have pain medication like we do now and some mothers even died in child birth. That was a reality of life.
So just like the mother had to go through the pain by herself, the disciples had to go through trials by themselves without the sympathy and help from the world. Just like them, sometimes we as Christians will have to go through tough times before it gets better and it will get worse before it gets better. It’s because we are followers of Jesus and the world hates Jesus. We need to remember that we are not greater than our master and if they hated him then they will hate us.
One last thing that could be the reason why he chose a woman going through labor is that in my mind, I believe the harder she pushed, the more pain she would experience. But she had to do it in order to get the task done and bring the baby into the world. Also the closer we live our lives with Christ, there is a possibility of our lives getting harder but that is ok because of what happens next.
As we get closer to death and eventually do die, we will see Jesus face to face and since we have lived our lives for his glory and no one else’s, we will appreciate everything about him more and we will be rewarded as such with crowns that he will bestow upon us. We will have joy that will forever stay with us as we are with Christ. The mother as well will experience excitement and joy when she sees the healthy baby that she brought into the world.
So despite how terrible life may be now, and it may even get worse. I’m not meaning to be negative but I want to encourage you to push on and keep going in the love an life of Christ for the life we live on earth pales in comparison to eternity in heaven. It pales in glory, length of time and the sorrows and trials we face here on earth will be nothing to what we will have in heaven, even if our entire lives are filled with dread.
So at the end of the day, keep pushing, keep fighting and living the Christian life. If you have any questions or disagreements or any way I can help, message me or comment below and I’ll respond when I can.
The Bible Life 