Between the first fruits and the harvest.
For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. Not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for adoption, the redemption of our body.
When did you last hear the groan that is not a word, only a sound your chest makes when waiting has gone on too long? Scripture says you have the first fruits of the Spirit—a taste, a down payment—but not yet the full redemption. So you wait.
And in the waiting, you may be tempted to call your groaning unbelief. You may force a smile to prove you are not a pagan, but the groan remains. That is the false refuge: the performance of a wholeness you do not yet possess.
Hear the news: the Spirit who is the first fruits is not embarrassed by your groan. He takes it up. Christ himself groaned in the garden, on the cross, and the Spirit turns your groan into a prayer that hits the throne. Your groan is a birth pang, and the child is not yet born. Your groan is not the absence of faith; it is faith waiting for what it cannot yet see. Will you let your groan be the prayer it already is?
Your groan is not the absence of faith; it is faith waiting for what it cannot yet see.
Father, let your Spirit carry my groan to your throne, and teach me to wait.
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