In the last essay, we saw that God rejoices over us before we are finished.
That is not the end of the story.
Scripture gives us more than present affirmation. It gives us a forward-facing joy, an end toward which formation moves, a destination that makes the cost of the journey rational. Without that end, obedience remains heavy without purpose. Becoming stretches on without fulfillment.
Scripture calls it joy.
Not the joy of completion alone, though that will come. Not the joy of relief alone, though that will come too.
The joy of full presence. Full sight. Full love. Full life.
The joy set before us.
Scripture does not describe this future with a single image. It offers many, each revealing a different dimension of the same promise: the joy ahead is embodied, relational, and greater in weight than anything we are presently carrying.
The Incompleteness We Still Carry
Paul speaks with unusual honesty about the tension of life in this age. In 2 Corinthians 4:16–18, he names both realities at once: the outer self wasting away and the inner self being renewed day by day. Growth in this age happens under erosion, not accumulation.
And yet Paul insists that this “light momentary affliction” is preparing something else: “an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison.”
Paul is not denying pain. He is refusing to let pain be the final frame.
Romans 8:18 says it plainly: “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us.” The glory coming is real, and when it arrives, even the heaviest season will feel light by comparison. This is comfort through proportion, and the proportion is staggering.
Creation Itself Is Waiting
Scripture makes a startling claim in Romans 8:19–23. We are not the only ones groaning.
Creation itself “waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” It has been subjected to futility, not willingly, but in hope. And it groans, not in death throes, but in childbirth.
This is not private struggle. This is cosmic labor.
We, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. We belong already, but we are not yet complete.
Scripture does not describe this waiting as resignation. It calls it eager longing. Hope that strains forward. Groaning that anticipates relief.
When you groan under the slow work of becoming, you are not merely enduring. You are participating in a creation-wide longing for restoration. There is dignity in that groaning. It is the sound of something that knows it was made for more.
We Will See Him as He Is
Throughout this series, we have emphasized the importance of seeing rightly. God leads through clarity. Illusions must fall so God can become clear.
But even our clearest sight in this age is partial.
Paul names this in 1 Corinthians 13:12: “Now we see in a mirror dimly. Then we will see face to face. Now we know in part. Then we will know fully, even as we are fully known.”
John echoes the same hope in 1 John 3:2: “We are God’s children now, but what we will be has not yet appeared. When He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him as He is.”
This is eschatological sight. Not improved perception, but unmediated presence. Not better theology alone, but face-to-face encounter.
This is the joy set before us. Not merely the joy of understanding more. Not merely the joy of sinning less. The joy of seeing God.
The seeing itself transforms, and that is what 1 John 3:2 promises. We will be like Him because we will see Him. Every step of slow obedience in this age is preparation for a sight that will complete what it began, making us finally able to bear what we cannot yet fully receive.
The Feast Prepared
Jesus often describes the kingdom in the language of feasting. In Matthew 8:11, He speaks of many coming from east and west to recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. In Revelation 19:9, those invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb are called blessed.
This is embodied promise. Not metaphor for its own sake.
Throughout this series, we have returned often to daily bread: enoughness, provision within limits, trust that does not grasp. Those limits train dependence. The final feast will not require restraint. It will be abundance without distortion, celebration without corruption, provision received without anxiety.
In this way, God teaches us now to receive enough so that, later, we can receive abundance without idolatry.
Every Tear Wiped Away
Revelation 21:4 offers one of Scripture’s most tender promises: “God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more. Mourning, crying, and pain will pass away.”
The tears shed in the long seasons of becoming are not forgotten. God will wipe them away personally. Not dismissively. Tenderly.
This is not erasure. It is healing. The former things pass away not because they did not matter, but because they are fully resolved.
The image resists abstraction. God bends toward His people and wipes their faces. Every tear from every slow and costly day. Fully seen. Fully tended. Fully resolved.
The New Song
In the previous essay, we ended with God singing over His people while they are still becoming.
Scripture also speaks of a song we will sing when that becoming is complete. Revelation 5:9–10 describes a new song sung by the redeemed, celebrating the Lamb who was slain and who ransomed people for God.
Right now, we are the ones being sung over. This is the season of receiving: grace, correction, God’s patient attention toward an unfinished people. But there is a day coming when we will no longer be only recipients. We will be singers. The voice trained through long obedience will finally join the chorus it was always being prepared for.
We cannot sing it yet. But one day, we will. And every costly step will make sense.
Why It Is Worth It
We are not being formed to earn the joy. We are being formed to be made capable of receiving it.
The joy ahead is so great that we must be prepared for it. God is teaching us to see so we will not be blinded by full sight, training us to trust so abundance will not corrupt us. Not because obedience merits the destination, but because the destination is too large to arrive at unprepared.
This is not endurance for endurance’s sake. It is preparation for something real.
The Already and the Not Yet
We live in tension. Already redeemed, not yet glorified. Already beloved, not yet made complete. Already learning the song, not yet singing it fully.
The present is genuinely hard, and the joy coming is greater than what we can yet receive. Both are true. The second gives the first its direction.
Until Then
Until we see Him face to face, we continue.
We trust without managing. We wait for clarity. We examine our hearts. We receive daily bread. We stumble forward in obedience that still costs us something.
But we do not continue in despair. We continue in hope.
Hebrews 12:1–2 reminds us that Jesus Himself ran this race: “For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of God.”
He endured the cost of obedience, knew grief, and pressed forward when the road was heavy.
Not because the cross was easy. But because the joy was real.
The same joy is set before us. And it will be worth it.
A personal note:
This essay came out of a rant.
The cost had started to feel heavy, and somewhere in the middle of carrying it I arrived at a very unglamorous question: what is the point of all of this if the primary experience is suffering through a world that is not yet what it should be?
I understood salvation. I believed in eternity. I could recite the theology. And yet the gap between what I knew and what I felt had become uncomfortably wide, wide enough that I genuinely wondered whether the promise was sufficient to make the present bearable.
Then I came across a podcast, where the guest stopped on Hebrews 12:2. Jesus, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross. Not enduring first and receiving joy as consolation afterward: the joy itself was the reason He could endure, real enough and near enough to sustain Him through the heaviest obedience ever required of anyone, because He could see something from where He stood that made the suffering worth carrying.
There is something coming so categorically greater than what we are enduring now that the proportion becomes staggering. Joy that makes the cross worth it. Glory that outweighs the groaning.
It did not immediately lift the burden. But it gave me something to hold.
If you are in the rant season, I wrote this for you. Not as an immediate fix. Just enough light to keep going.
The joy is real. And it will be worth it.