This post is Day 6 in a series of studies about “Remembering”. I strongly suggest you begin with the introduction to this study, please click here to read it.

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Remembering – Day 6

This is from the farewell speech Jesus made when He warned His disciples that He was leaving them to continue His work. They would be continuing all they had learned from Him because He was soon to go home to Heaven. His hearers had no idea what that really meant.

John 16:21

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.

The Thought

This is part of the farewell speech which Jesus made when He was warning His disciples that He was leaving them to continue His work. They would be continuing all they had learned from Him because He was soon to go home to Heaven. His hearers had no idea what that really meant, and Jesus knew that, but He was trying to make things as clear as possible. A few verses later, Jesus explained it more clearly by saying I came from the Father, and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father (v28).

The disciples then thought they understood, but in fact they had not understood the crisis, and the agony and the tragedy they were going to witness. How often, after Jesus’ ascension into Heaven when they were in the upper room, must they have thought over some of the things He had told them? They were experiencing then, the anguish and pain described in the childbirth picture of today’s verse. What joy there was when “the baby” was born and Holy Spirit arrived to set them on their new path of going into all the world to preach the gospel (Mark 16:15).

Action

Read the farewell speech of Jesus today (John 15:1–16:28), and try to imagine the changing emotions of the listeners? Later they would remember much of what He had said.

Ask yourself how much of Jesus instruction you remember after you have closed your Bible each day. Are you aware of His presence, or do you leave Him on the shelf with your Bible and forget His words until there is a difficulty and you need His help?

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