Grief Has a Due Date

Date: Friday, August 28, 2026

Jesus tells His disciples something that sounds backwards: “It is for your good that I am going away” (John 16:7). How could His absence be good news? Because it makes room for the Spirit, who will indwell every believer everywhere, constantly keeping us in the spiritual presence of Jesus. This is a major turning point in the whole biblical story: the presence of God, once localized to a tabernacle, then a temple, then a traveling teacher, is about to become personal and portable for every child of the New Covenant. And in the process, we individually become the living temple of God.

Then Jesus turns focus to one of the most universal images of pain transformed: a woman in labor. “She has sorrow because her hour has come; but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy” (John 16:21). It’s a promise of an expiration date on grief.

Joni Eareckson Tada, paralyzed at seventeen in a diving accident, spent years wrestling with despair. She begged friends to help her die rather than face life in a wheelchair. But over time that despair gave way to something she never expected: a discovered joy found in Christ. She went on to found a ministry serving people with disabilities around the world, saying that her wheelchair, of all things, had become the very place she met Jesus most intimately. "You will have sorrow," Jesus says plainly, "but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you" (16:22).

Devotional Prompts:

What sorrow in your life feels endless right now that Jesus might be saying has an appointed end?
How does knowing the Spirit lives in you, not just near you, change how you face hard seasons?

Prayer: Comforter and Advocate, meet us in seasons of labor-pain grief. Remind us that joy is coming, and that You are already present within us. Amen.