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Ever wonder what the "birth pangs" Christ talks about allude to, or how they feel in a spiritual sense? I imagine that women who have been pregnant and had children will more readily understand the metaphor, but for those of us who haven't had that experience (or won't), I'll try to talk it out and hope it doesn't come across as misinterpreted or confusing.
I know I have the spiritual gift of administration, among others such as teaching, prophecy, and exhortation. Thing with those gifts is that often, those that hold them are easily discouraged by looking around and seeing all the things taking place outside the will of God. I find myself constantly battling these "darker sides" of the gifts I've named above, and so, wishing for the day when all of God's own will act out to reclaim the world around us for Christ. That's not to say that I'm always doing my very best to reach the world for Jesus. On the contrary, I typically find myself overly aware of what I don't like about myself in others, particularly laziness and apathy. And, if you understand this point of view, you also see that when this kind of mind takes a hold of me, I count what I'm going through as "suffering."
This is why I want to look at Paul's letter to the Romans, particularly, chapter 8, and beginning in verse 18:
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
If this is true, and mark my words, it is, then neither you nor I have any reason to stop going forward with what Christ's Spirit has indeed told us in our hearts. And the beautiful thing is, if Christ says it to me, He won't say the opposite to you, for "a house divided against itself will fall."
I often feel as though I look around at many of my brothers and sisters, and I'm talking about Christians, not the lost, and see them "biting and devouring each other" until no forward progress or fruit of the Kingdom of God is being shown to the world right outside our doors. And then comes the anger. And, I believe, I'm justified in my anger. However, if I let it inhibit me from making any more forays into the battlefield, I've completely lost all that justification. Anger is God-made, but we typically count it as sin because of what accompanies it. We hardly ever act Christ-like in our anger, which is to "be angry and sin not." However, that quote from Scripture does NOT mean to "be angry and act not."
Take, for instance, Christ turning over the tables of the money-changers in the Temple. He was irate. (that's a $2 word for really super angry) But what did He do? Did He just leave the problem? Nope. If I'm not mistaken, He went after the problem's throat...not the people's. That's how He avoided sinning. He uprooted the evil of the moment without hurting anything but man's pride.
Pretty radical, when you actually think about it. Can you worship that man?
Or, better yet, do you care little enough about yourself to be angry and act, only not in sin, but in righteousness, as long as it was for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom?
Look at another passage with me: Matthew 17:14-21...to summarize, Christ is asked to heal a demon-possessed boy. And according to the account of the Scriptures, His disciples had tried and failed at doing what He was about to do. What was His response? "O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me." And when they asked him why they couldn't do what He did (and by the way, told them they were able to do), He simply said, "Because of your little faith." And He proceeded to do the very thing the disciples were not able to.
So what about us? It's really easy to say "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." But, often times, and sadly, we tend to tack on a phrase at the end of that statement to the effect of "unless it's something I don't think I can do or don't want to do." Let's put that away, because as we read on, Jesus then gives us hope and an understood command that "nothing will be impossible for you."
I, for one, do not want to spend my life in anger, but I am embracing a Godly way of being angry when it does take place. That said, I'm not following the time-honored tradition of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," mainly because when we do our Christian right and responsibility to point out wrong in our brothers and sisters in the Body (AFTER taking the log out of our own eye, mind you), it does NOT sound "nice." However, as Christ did, I am taking strides to act in anger, and to do so in a Christ-like and loving way.
I know this sounds heretical. But so did Jesus.
Let's move on past the only anger we know, that of "I'm mad so I hate." Let's open our hearts up to a Godly, righteous anger, that says, "I'm angry with how things are, and I love, so I'm going to be a Christian agent of Godly change in the Church first and then in the world." I know, it's a longer sentence. And rightly so...it holds a much larger Spirit.
Oh, and the reason we get angry, if we're Godly at all, is because we want the Church to be better than She is at present...so we end with the last bit of the first passage we studied..."Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
So, let's hope for the best, and progressively move toward making it happen. After all, "nothing will be impossible for you."
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