A Womb With a View

“For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in [the splendor of His] glory.” Colossians 3:3-4 (Amplified)

While watching my daughter’s belly grow, I have a growing sense of how this sanctification process I am going through in Christ is somehow as hidden away as my grandchild is today. Consider the supreme care and thoughtfulness God gave to our physical creation while we were hidden in the womb … “Oh yes, You shaped me first inside, then out; You formed me in my mother's womb. I thank You, High God—You're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, You know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, You watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before You, the days of my life all prepared before I'd even lived one day.” Psalm 139:13-16 (Message)

I cannot begin to comprehend how He knit together our physical bodies inside our mother’s womb. I am even more mystified by His careful hidden orchestration of our “re-birth and sanctification process” while we are visible here on earth!

“All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. 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. 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.” Romans 8:22-25 (Message)

Certainly, our home is filled with anticipation and preparations for the upcoming arrival of my daughter’s child. With the joy there has been pain in the process (as all of us who have been in pregnancy and labor can attest to!) This joy and pain is an obvious parallel to what I encounter in my consecration process -- growth opportunities, often referred to as “hard times” or “difficult circumstances” and joy of His salvation.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1Peter 1:3-9 (NIV)

No matter what “trials” I go through though, graciously, through the Word of God I realize that although I am in the “womb” of being transformed into a new creation in Christ … it is actually a “womb with a view.” In His Word He points to what He is making me into, to what will be revealed on the day of Christ Jesus, and to how certain a fate this is. “There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.” Philippians1:6 (Message)

So all my dear sisters, let’s be happy together that no matter what our age or state of life we are really new creations in Christ!