The Future

In the midst of our darkest grief, it is hard to imagine anything being worthwhile to anticipate. Even the most joyous future events seem incredibly painful to us. Imagine a brother’s wedding and his sister is not in attendance. Or a woman meeting her first grandchild in the delivery room without her husband - the baby’s grandfather. Any scenario would work here - imagine your own circumstance. Most of us have only flippantly used the word “bittersweet” in the past, but now we truly understand the meaning. Try as we might, it is difficult to rejoice in future joyous events.

But we must do just that. Why? Because God calls us to do so. In Romans 8 we are confronted with a seemingly impossible task: to happily consider what lies ahead of us:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

Since my son’s death I have often commented on the dichotomy between my head and my heart. Although these two organs within my body are not that far from one another, in reality they are worlds apart. What I feel is often in conflict with what I know, and what I know rebels against my feelings. Perhaps God, knowing our frailty, gives us passages like this one to lead us into healing. We must meditate continually upon the promises of God to calm our feelings of sorrow and despair.

Matthew Henry has an interesting commentary on this verse, beginning with the obvious statement that Paul, of all people, was personally acquainted with suffering, but also with future glory:

“Now Paul was as competent a judge of this point as ever any mere man was. He could reckon not by art only, but by experience; for he knew both. He knew what the sufferings of this present time were; He knew what the glory of heaven is. And, upon the view of both, he gives this judgment here. There is nothing like a believing view of the glory which shall be revealed to support and bear up the spirit under all the sufferings of this present time... As the saints are suffering, so they are waiting. Heaven is therefore sure; for God by his Spirit would not raise and encourage those hopes only to defeat and disappoint them. He will establish that word unto his servants on which he has caused them to hope (Ps. 119:49), and heaven is therefore sweet; for, if hope deferred makes the heart sick, surely when the desire comes it will be a tree of life (Prov. 13:12).”

Experience has shown you what your present suffering is. Through faith and the Word of God, however, you can hold on to what your future glory shall be. One day there will no longer be any event that is bittersweet; in fact, bitterness will be eliminated from our vocabulary and from our lives.

Let’s ask God to enlighten our hearts to the glorious truths of Heaven, where eternity future will be forever as wonderful as eternity present.