Groaning and Christmas: 4th Week of Advent, Day 2

Week 4 Day 2: Romans 8:18-25

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 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. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope[b] for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.) (NLT)

Groaning and Christmas really don’t seem to fit together. Well, unless your fat old aunt is demanding a kiss or your grandma gave you a sweater straight out of 1983.

Groaning uniquely communicates suffering. It’s not pleasant to hear. It’s not pleasant to utter. Groaning comes in when we’re too sick to put the words together to express our pain. When suffering reaches a point where words require too much effort, we groan.

According to Romans 8, suffering and groaning are a common occurrence. Creation is groaning. Believers are groaning. There’s a whole lot of groaning going on. The world is not as it should be. Groan. We all suffer from the curse. Groan. We suffer in our physical bodies. Groan. Fortunately, this is not a permanent condition.

If we trust in God, He saves us. When He saves us, He plants a seed of hope in our hearts. We get to experience a little of what is yet to come.

We look around and groan. We look forward in hope.

What are you groaning about today? Right now, turn your groans to God and be reminded of the hope He gives.


Copyright © 2009 by Allen White

All Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. Copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.