… thanking God for things we haven’t often thought to be thankful for.
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you . . .
(Galatians 4:19, NIV)
Apart from morning sickness, there is a sweet, a delicious joy in discovering new life developing in the womb … in isolation, in darkness, protected, loved, nourished, wanted, anticipated.
Prayed for. Prayed over.
Then, the travail. The birth. We look so forward to the birth, but the travail is daunting as we undergo it and when we consider it.
Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD. “Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God.
Isaiah 66:9
Why do we think so much more intently upon the things that haven’t worked, haven’t come forth, haven’t changed … than we do upon the Lord’s faithfulness? Foolish.
Foolish because there is much yet to come to the birth, and we are the womb by our prayers and intercession. Things that appeared to be failures or loss were episodes of grace or truth, redemptive along the way. Souls are yet meant to be reborn and saints are yet to be conformed to the image of Christ. We don’t need a pregnancy test or special license, not when we love, when we care, when we desire good for the souls of men. Where, oh where, do we think that love and compassion comes from?
Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2 (ESV)
We lack only fervor, and the righteousness of a holy determination; ours is to bring to the birth in the womb of hope.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
(James 5:16, KJV)
Statue of a Pregnant Macedonian Woman
Dennis Jarvis, by permission, Wikipedia
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