As I sit here in the quiet of the afternoon. Father, I would ask once again for Your guidance in where my thoughts will lead me. May it be down paths of Your design. Amen.
Romans 8:19-25 (<<click here to read the passage)
And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. v23
This year was a big mile-marker for me. I’ve officially ridden this old globe for 60 rotations around the sun! Age, my own and others around me, occupies a fair amount of my thoughts.
This week one of my cousin’s sons forwarded a picture of my extended family from an event at my uncle’s church several years ago. I was able to get a rough idea of when the picture was taken in that I could tell that my son was around two years old at the time. It was a little less than half of my lifetime ago. At the time, my parents would have both been a little younger than I am now. My grandmother would have been a little past ninety.
Since then, all of our lives have changed significantly. My uncle and my grandmother have both passed on to their eternal reward. My parents are now edging closer to 90. Just the hair alone in the picture has changed. There is far more of it that is white. And on the other hand, some have far less hair than pictured there. Though many wish they could slow time down, it continues to march forward, regardless of our hopes and wishes.
My mom posted a meme today that read, “As you get older you will understand more and more that it’s not about what you look like or what you own, it’s all about the person you’ve become.”
A portion of verse 23 reads,
…we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. NLT
I’ve mentioned before that my grandmother and a highly respected pastor of mine, toward the end of their lives, both wanted to know why the Lord had not called them home. Both were confined to their beds and felt that their lives weren’t worth much at that point. They both longed for their bodies to be released from sin and suffering – for what is suffering but the end result of our sin?
I don’t know when my time will come but there are things that wear on me, even at my age.
The older we get, the more we can understand what the Apostle Paul had to say at the end of verse 23,
We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.
I know the groanings I have now are just the beginning, but what is next, thanks be to God, is most definitely not the end either! Amen!
Mar 12th, 2023, Sun, 5:06 pm
