Romans 8:18 pulls our eyes off the scale of today’s ache and onto the weight of what God has promised to unveil. Suffering is real, but it is not final; it is not even comparable to what the Lord is preparing for His children.

Bold Hope for Heavy Days

Pain has a way of shrinking our world until it feels like the only thing we can see. But God invites you to measure your hardship against something bigger than your hardship: His coming glory. That doesn’t minimize the tears; it redeems them. Paul isn’t asking you to pretend it doesn’t hurt—he’s asking you to remember that the story is headed somewhere.

And God has always worked this way. “Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Not because life magically improves, but because the Lord Himself is faithful, present, and purposeful in the dark. Even now, He is not wasting what you are carrying.

Suffering With Purpose, Not Randomness

Some suffering is the painful consequence of living in a broken world; some is the refining fire God uses to shape us. Either way, none of it slips through His hands. “And we know that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). “All things” includes the parts you would never choose.

God’s purpose is not merely to help you cope; it is to conform you to Christ. “For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that is far beyond comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Your suffering is not the headline—God is writing something deeper: endurance, character, hope, and a faith that holds fast when feelings don’t.

Living Now in the Light of What’s Coming

Future glory isn’t just a doctrine to store on a shelf; it’s fuel for today. The promise of what will be revealed steadies you to love, forgive, serve, and persevere when it costs you. “Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him” (1 John 3:2). That future likeness changes how you walk through the present.

So set your mind where your life truly is. “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2). Not escapism—alignment. Today, you can choose to interpret your circumstances through God’s promises instead of interpreting God’s promises through your circumstances. The glory ahead doesn’t make today easy, but it makes today meaningful.

Lord, thank You for the glory You have promised and for Your presence in every hardship. Strengthen my faith today—help me endure with hope and obey You with courage. Amen.

The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to restore the lost soul to intimate fellowship with God through the washing of regeneration. To accomplish this He first reveals Christ to the penitent heart (1 Corinthians 12:3). He then goes on to illumine the newborn soul with brighter rays from the face of Christ (John 14:26; 16:13-15) and leads the willing heart into depths and heights of divine knowledge and communion. Remember, we know Christ only as the Spirit enables us and we have only as much of Him as the Holy Spirit imparts. God wants worshipers before workers; indeed the only acceptable workers are those who have learned the lost art of worship. It is inconceivable that a sovereign and holy God should be so hard up for workers that He would press into service anyone who had been empowered regardless of his moral qualifications. The very stones would praise Him if the need arose and a thousand legions of angels would leap to do His will. Gifts and power for service the Spirit surely desires to impart; but holiness and spiritual worship come first.

This is My resting-place for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it. - Psalm 132:14.

This is an allusion not only, as I think, to the Temple, but also to the Oriental habit of giving a man who took refuge in the tent of the shield of guest-rites of protection and provision and friendship. The habit exists to this day, and travelers among the Bedouin tell us lovely stories of how even an enemy with the blood of the closest relative of the owner of the tent on his hands, if he can once get in there and partake of the salt of the host, is safe, and the first obligation of the owner of the tent is to watch over the life of the fugitive as over his own.

So the Psalmist says in one place, " I desire to have guest-rites in Thy tent; to lift up its fold, and shelter there from the heat of the desert. And although I be dark, and stained with many evils and transgressions against Thee, yet I come to claim the hospitality and provision and protection and friendship which the laws of the house do bestow upon a guest." Carrying out substantially the same idea, Paul tells the Ephesians, as if it were the very highest privilege that the Gospel brought to the Gentiles: "Ye are no more strangers, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God’’’’; incorporated into His household, and dwelling safely in His pavilion as their home. That is to say, the blessedness of keeping up such a continual consciousness of touch with God is, first and foremost, the certainty of infallible protection. Oh! how it minimizes all trouble, and brightens all joys, and calms amidst all distractions, and steadies and sobers in all circumstances, to feel ever the hand of God upon us! He who goes through life finding that, when he has trouble to meet, it throws him back on God, and that, when bright mornings of joy drive away nights of weeping, these wake morning songs of praise and are brightest because they shine with the light of a Father’s love, will never be unduly moved by any vicissitudes of fortune. Like some inland and sheltered valley, with great mountains shutting it in, that "heareth not the loud winds when they call" beyond the barriers that enclose it, our lives may be tranquilly free from distraction, and may be full of peace, of nobleness, and of strength, on condition of our keeping in God’s house all the days of our lives.

Trust brings rest, because it casts all our burdens on another. Every act of reliance, though it does not deliver from responsibility, delivers from anxiety. We see that even when the object of our trust is but a poor creature like ourselves. Husbands and wives who find settled peace in one another, parents and children, patrons and protected, and a whole series of other relationships in life, are witnesses to the fact that the attitude of reliance brings the actuality of repose. A little child goes to sleep beneath its mother’s eye, and is tranquil, not only because it is ignorant, but because it is trustful. So, if we will only get behind the shelter, the blast will not blow about us, but we shall be in what they call on the opposite side of the Tweed - in a word that is music in the ears of some of us - a " lown place," where we hear not the loud winds when they call. Trust is rest; even when we lean upon an arm of flesh, though that trust is often disappointed. "What is the depth of the repose that comes not from trust that leans against something supposed to be a steadfast oak, that proves to be a broken reed, but against the Rock of Ages! We which have "believed do enter into rest."