Briars, brambles, devastating earthquakes in central America, hurricanes.this winter saw the largest number of tornadoes ever recorded in one winter in America, three times more than ever before. Creation is groaning. Not to mention the pollution which is the direct result of our sinfulness. Contaminated drinking water, a football field of rainforest destroyed every minute, a 300 hundred percent increase in lung cancer is the latest evidence that the air we breath is filthy. We have truly paved paradise and put in a parking lot, and the entire natural world is groaning for relief from the heavy weight of the sins of the two-legged humans who are so destructive.
Nature groans with our sins, straining toward a new age.
And we groan, too. We groan because we live in an in-between age in history, in between the Holy Spirit and the resurrection of our bodies. We groan because something in our hearts can sense, something in our souls can feel that a new world is just around the corner, and we groan in longing for that new, better world. The groaning is a longing. We groan, longing for families that stay together.