I shared this with Susan, and once I did I might see her getting excited as she made the identical connections that I did. However amusement shortly turned to concern when she requested, “However what about all of the struggling?” That does appear to be the query that most individuals come again to, isn’t it? Struggling. What can we do with the struggling that solely results in pointless ache and dying with none seeming redemptive goal?
That is the place that lens is useful once more. Simply because the Holy Spirit is current in human struggling to perform redemptive functions (sanctification) in people and ship them to their closing renewed state (glorification), so too, the Holy Spirt is current within the struggling of creation to perform redemptive functions and ship it to its closing state of renewed creation. What could appear to us to be purposeless to us, certainly has an final goal. Even when it’s not instantly obvious, we all know that struggling has an overarching goal: closing redemption.
I might see Susan’s combined emotions about this reply written throughout her face. She ultimately blurted out, “Certain, it’s good to know that the struggling of billions of organisms over hundreds of thousands of years serves some massive final goal, however what concerning the very actual and fast struggling being skilled now?” Truthful. “There may be excellent news for that as nicely, let me clarify,” I replied.
The Holy Spirit isn’t a chilly companion who remotely observes struggling unempathetically. The Holy Spirit walks proper in the course of struggling, empowering and comforting us via it. Consider it in an analogous technique to how a midwife empowers and comforts a mom in labor to ship her child.
The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 8:18-27 that the creation groans in labor pains for its redemption. Not solely the creation groans, but in addition “we ourselves, who’ve the primary fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly” (vs. 23). The struggling in evolutionary historical past isn’t a brutal, remoted, pointless ache. It’s being midwifed by the Holy Spirit, who’s empowering and comforting creation via its struggling till its supply into closing redemption.
