Here is todays Bible excerpt featured in Our Daily Bread.
Romans 8:18-25King James Version (KJV)
18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
This speaks to me in so much as the present suffering in life seems substantial, but I also know that God’s glory will someday make it seem trivial by comparison.
Right now I’m stressed financially, and having a hard time finding some web development gigs to fill the financial gap, or any other work I can do, and it’s stressful, and the banks of course do everything to make it as stressful as possible since in their view you really have buckets of money, you just don’t want to give it to them. I have to remind myself that everything in this life is temporary.
In prison, I experienced the love, forgiveness, and perhaps in very small part the glory of God. I’ve related my experience in solitary before, and having that weight lifted changed my life. I still have some anxiety over real things, like not having money to pay the bills, but it’s not nebulous, in actionable, and overwhelming like the anxiety that drove my entire life in the past.
But there was another thing I experienced, most of my life I’ve kind of dreaded the Christmas season when the normal programming of radio stations that normally played music I liked would turn to Christmas music.
But after the event in solitary, I found myself going to the prison church, originally on the invite of a couple of other inmates that had befriended me, and when Christmas came around, I found myself singing Christmas songs and hymns and praises to God and feeling a joy unparalleled by anything I had ever experienced in the past and that I think was the glory, light, and love of God penetrating even those prison walls.
And so while I trudge my way through this life’s difficulties and stresses, I do so knowing I will one day experience that again only not in a diluted transient manner but in a direct eternal manner.
