There’s a raw honesty about the way things are that Romans 8 reveals that resonates with me deeply. Paul takes an honest look at the world and says plainly it has been subjected to futility and is in a state of bondage and decay. Something is terribly wrong with the good world God made, and creation itself is carrying the weight of the consequences.
 
But Paul never indicates that creation, even as broken as it is, is being abandoned or discarded by God. All of creation waits, it longs, and it groans. Paul compares those groans to the sounds of labor pains. The suffering is real enough, but it is a type of suffering, like that of childbirth, that points to a much more joyful future.
 
The future Paul speaks of is directly connected to what God is doing in His children. We groan, too, waiting for the redemption of our bodies. Humanity is caught, along with creation in general, in this present tension between what has been broken and what God has promised to restore. Thankfully, the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is already at work in His people, giving us a glimpse, a foretaste, of the life that’s coming.
 
Our hope, then, is much bigger than escaping this hardship or simply going to heaven when we die. God intends to liberate all of creation, us included, from its bondage to death and decay. Our bodies matter. Creation matters and the resurrection matters.
 
We have no need to deny the fact that groaning exists around us and within us. Scripture here gives us permission to call it out with honesty, but we grieve as people who know where the story is going, not as those lamenting where it’s been. What no groans will not groan forever. The very same God who raises the dead is bringing His creation toward the glory of freedom.

Where in your life do you most clearly see the groaning of creation or the effects of decay? How can Romans 8 impact the way you understand Christian hope in the middle of that groaning brokenness?

Father, it’s hard not to notice the incredible brokenness of this world. I feel it in my own life. Thank you that You have not abandoned what You’ve created. Teach my heart to groan honestly but to do so without losing hope. Fix my eyes intently on the freedom and rescue You’ve promised. Let the resurrection of Jesus shape the way I wait for the renewal yet to come.

"Because creation’s groaning is not the end, I can __________________."