How do you wait patiently when you can’t see what you’re hoping for, but you can see the present sufferings? This requires the value of the hope to far surpass the struggle to reach it. Verse 18 puts it this way: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Our sufferings not only don’t compare to the future glory, they aren’t even worth comparing!

This passage exists in a larger one that references several times something that sounds a bit like impatient hopelessness: groaning. Creation groans (v22), we groan (v23)… even the Spirit groans (v26)! How could such a hopeful passage be surrounded by groaning? Verse 22 describes it as, “groaning as in the pains of childbirth” which is apt. Groaning amidst childbirth is not only warranted, but an act of perseverance against immense suffering, all done because of the hope of a child in the end; those sufferings are not worth comparing with the new life that results. When this was written, a pre-technology mother had very few promises of what would follow her painful labor — Health? Twins? Complications? Stillbirth — and so she hoped in what she could not see, persevering in faith it would be worth it. In the same way, we cannot see what God has promised beyond this present, fading life, and so are invited to patiently hope, though we groan through the hardships.

And when we can’t, the Spirit groans on our behalf. (v26)