What Are You Expecting?

Or do you even realize that you are expecting? There is a little life in you, and it is starting to show.

Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain roughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. (From The MESSAGE's rendition of Romans 8)

You are pregnant. You are expecting. But again, what are you expecting? Do you dare to expect to be different? Can you feel the stretching and kicking and know that a Christ-like life awaits?

For Cindie's second pregnancy, we did not find out which gender the baby would be through ultrasounds. We were shocked to find it out he was a boy. So shocked, we could barely breathe. We were not expecting that.

I've heard stories from fifty years ago about women being surprised to find out they had twins. They were not expecting to take two home.

I've even heard stories of people being unwittingly pregnant. They go into the hospital because of unknown pains and leave with new life. They weren't expecting anything.

What are you expecting? I wonder how many people enter the Christian faith aware of the coming pains of pregnancy. I wonder how often we feel the pains of contraction and think of it as a failure of our faith rather than the predecessor to our deliverance.

The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance.

How many know this is normal? How many are aware of the fruit of the pain?


Are you taking the necessary vitamins? Are you preparing your house? Are you aglow with the beautiful life within? Are you making yourself ready for the new life that is coming?

That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

So, what shoud we be expecting? Pain. Yes, and lots of that. But after the pain, a new life. That baby is described like this:

He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.

It's so hard to imagine what that will look like. Yet, it is so worth the pain.


And he gives us something for the pain too. No painkillers, this pain is too important. Instead, he gives the best midwife imaginable.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

I write this to encourage you. Pregnancies almost always seem to last longer than they actually do. The pain will produce a joy so great, that you'll know it was all worth it. There is a glorious life growing in you. And it is beginning to show.