Life As It Should Be Known

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Matthew 5:4

I have been avoiding talking about the outcome of the election. The first thing I found myself doing after knowing the mainstream media already called it was buy a zoom lens. Whether the president wins (and even people from other countries were rooting for his re-election) or loses (where despots will be emboldened), the earth’s labor pains still advances. Oregon is a blue state and even when they re-elected their officials and voted to decriminalize hard drugs, people are still not happy! Protests and more protests… If you drive by Salem downtown, you see people talk to themselves, making strange gestures and they have no earphones on.

If we knew the fine details of the future before it happened, we will be robbed of genuine emotions. All we would know is happiness, but then again, how can we gauge happiness if we don’t know what it is to be in anguish?

Without anguish, how will you know sorrow?
Without sorrow, solace?
Without solace, hope?

“But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?”

Romans 8:24b

Without hope, faith (Hebrews 11:1)?
Without faith, how can we trust?

In the meantime, we are to trust in His care even when we see storm clouds rising. Without Lazarus dying (John 11:1-44), he would not have been raised from the dead, so also with Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:35-43). Without the widow in Zarephath experiencing hardship, she would not have known of God’s supernatural provision (1 Kings 17:7-16).

There’s no stopping the labor pains (Romans 8:22), in the same way that no one can ‘hasten’ the return of Jesus Christ. God holds the future and everything happens according to His timetable. It makes us more hopeful to anticipate what God’s righteous rule really looks like.

“‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Revelation 21:4