John 16:21-22
When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
What a great comfort this passages is! And all the more reason to be eternally minded! This is one of those passages in which the principle of hope rests on and shows how joy can be found in hope, knowing not just that a better day is coming, but a day so good that it makes us forget everything terrible we experienced leading up to it.
But for me, the best sentence in this passage is found in verse 22: "and no one will take your joy from you." This joy Jesus describes her is not fleeting human emotion. It's not temporal or just for a season. It's permanent, and no one will ever be able to take it away from us.
This is what we have to look forward to - essentially, perfection. Resting in such hope for that joy can bring us a sturdy joy even now in the midst of our trials. Such hope certainly helps ease up the weight of our trials, for we know that something good will come of them. This pain is only for a season. The joy that Jesus offers us, however, is eternal.
We have access to that joy now. Because it's an internal joy bred from our hope in Jesus, not one dependent on outside circumstances. A joy that rests in our infallible Jesus has no reason to ever fade. Let us welcome in that joy now as we continue to hope for the day where everything external will bring us joy, too. A day that will come in our eternity spent with Christ Jesus.
Take heart in this today!
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