Looking forward to our final redemption.

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This torn up road lies between a restaurant and a bank, in the small Northeast Colorado town of Brush. The entire street has been dug up. No one has been able to travel on this road for many weeks. The businesses hope that it won’t take away from their foot traffic, as it’s quite inconvenient to walk around. Parking a car on this road is impossible. It’s hard to be patient with something that seems more like destruction then construction.

We face circumstances that appear like this road.  Unexpected and evil things happen in this world. Satan is actively sowing seeds of destruction. Sometimes it surprises us. It obscures the path in front of us and we can’t envision a way through life’s next intersection. It closes in on us and we feel paralyzed. We don’t know where to go to escape, and we don’t even know how or what to pray. Our peace erodes and our minds race uncontrollably. Things are not how they were intended to be. We join all of creation in groaning under the weight of sin, and the destruction it causes.

However, we have hope.

“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 for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.”
Romans 8:18-25 New Living Translation

If you aren’t employed in road construction, it’s hard to imagine how the workers know what to do under all that dirt to install sewer systems, water mains, or create a level road again. Even though you see destruction, there is a plan that will be achieved with the skill of the workers to recreate the road. You have hope that it will all work out well, and that you will once again be able to drive down the road.

Although we often want tangible answers, instead God asks us to trust Him, the prayers of the Holy Spirit, and to have hope in His­ plan of redemption from our destruction in the midst of the chaos.

“And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.”
Romans 8:26-27 New Living Translation

We patiently wait for the redemption that is to come through the grace of Christ our Lord. Our true home is the kingdom of God, and we are closer to arriving in His eternal presence every minute. Until then, we can be confident that the Holy Spirit will be praying for us and reminding us where our hope lies as we face each roadblock.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado