Reflections
A woman when she is in travail has sorrow because her hour is come. But as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembers no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. And you now therefore have sorrow. But I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you. (John 16:21-22)
Jesus said these things to His disciples right before He was arrested and crucified. They had hoped for an immediate kingdom with Jesus as the Messiah, and it was all about to come crashing down. But there is a principle in this for us – if what we expected God was doing dies, there is something being birthed out of that pain.
The pain of a woman in travail is all-consuming. She cannot ignore it in most cases. Most pain and suffering is like that – we tend to focus upon what we are losing, or upon what we are suffering. We want out. We want relief. Usually God is silent.
This passage tells us the usual reason WHY: There is a birth taking place. It may not be a literal birth, but it is a birth in type. It requires that we lose our own life and our self-ownership. Then the life of Christ will find a great release in us. Christ will be formed in us. If we lose our life, we will find Him as our life.
This is necessary because of the nature of things – because of the place to which Adam brought the human race. It is actually a Truth that is veiled in the judgment God pronounced upon Eve regarding the necessity of her pain in childbirth, and is repeated in the NT by Paul. The way to life in Christ requires that we undergo an experience – as a woman in travail. But once the purpose of God is birthed, we will see that the pain and suffering was not to be compared to the glory revealed in us.