day no. 15,701: labor and deliverance

Hebrews 11:13

These all died in faith

"Dying in faith looks into the future. They fell asleep, affirming that the Messiah would surely come, and that when he would in the last days appear upon the earth, they would rise from their graves to behold him. To them the pains of death were but the birth-pangs of a better state." -- Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening

Life begins and ends in similar fashion. Great travail is the prologue to every novel. New life begins by the labor pains that produce it. Conversion is accompanied by great dread and terror descending on a person that produces fear and trembling prior to being raised to new life by grace through faith in Christ. And finally, at death, if one is given the opportunity to see it coming, it is attended by fear and terrors similar to labor pains. There is new life waiting in the wings and in the works, but it must first endure the difficulties of labor before they give way to delight and relief that consumes all the terrors that preceded it.

Pangs are a necessary precursor to rebirth. Without pain, there cannot be new life.

Acts 14:22

Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.