A Journeywoman's Hope is in Heaven with Vanessa Hawkins
Today, we’re revisiting a conversation with Vanessa Hawkins on living in light of eternity because a Journeywoman’s hope resides in heaven. We talked about what a difference it makes as we navigate the seasons and hardships of life when we approach them with eternity in view. This is our last episode in the “What is a Journeywoman?” series. It’s been so wonderful revisiting these timeless conversations on what it means to be a woman of God.. We pray that this episode encourages you—in the midst of whatever it is you are walking through today—to fix your gaze on eternity. That is what being a Journeywoman is all about.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
Why is it important that we keep our eyes fixed on eternity as we walk through both good times and hard times?
Why does God allow us to walk through suffering and grief on this side of heaven? Why not just eliminate our pain and hardship?
How does living with eternity in view change the way we walk through this life?
How does it change the way we walk alongside others and encourage them in their various joys and sorrows?
Why do you think we are prone to forget that this is not our home? Why do we so often think and act like this world is our final destination?
What might we see in ourselves if we've lost sight of eternity? What do you do when you personally experience this?
What are the things that we will take/carry with us into eternity? What is the joy in knowing we will walk alongside one another forever and ever?
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES
“The joys and hardships are not an end unto themselves. Looking solely at our joys might lead us to conclude that we have somehow earned favor because of our own goodness. Looking solely at the sorrows might lead us to falsely conclude that our unpleasant circumstances result from the Lord’s displeasure, or that he doesn’t care.”
“Placing our joys and sorrows within the framework of eternity helps us to take ourselves out of the center and places the purposes and desires of God, a good and sovereign king, there in the center instead. When we do that, we can then trust that our joys and sorrows are allowed by this gracious king and that they extend beyond the limited purposes of today and well into eternity. And that’s encouraging.”
‘God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.’ - Charles Spurgeon
“In his sovereign goodness, God has chosen suffering as a path to glory.”
“Living in light of eternity moves me towards hope, and that's what lament has done. It has been that vehicle by which I move towards hope.”
Lauren: It’s not hard to see that our world is broken. We all experience this brokenness in different ways. And so even though we might intellectually know the truths about God—that he’s good, sovereign, and working all things for good and for his glory—sometimes the brokenness compels us to honestly lament. It’s important to know that grief and lament is a right response to the brokenness of the world. It’s good to sit in grief and to cry out to God with it. But, like Vanessa said, lament can (and should) also be the vehicle by which we move towards hope. But how does it do this? It’s because it’s in the depths of our lament that we can truly see God’s heart, and we can see that he has made a way for us to never be alone in our grief. Our grief points us to the beauty of Emmanuel, God with us. Our lament points us to a God who condescended to a broken and pained world to bring hope. Our hurt reminds us that we have a God who is not distant in our grief, but one who is gentle and lowly and near (Matt. 11:29) Because Christ is the only one who truly has experienced our pain; he is the only one who could (and has!) truly defeated sin and brokenness and has offered hope to this world (Heb. 4:15-16). Our God who was “despised and rejected” and “a man of sorrows” (Is. 53:3). Who put on a frail human frame, who entered this broken world, who bore the full weight of its depravity. This God, who condescended in order that we might be made right before God, is a God of redemption and restoration. His heart is to enter in, to be near, to heal. The Word who became flesh came to dwell among us (John 1:14), God with us, Emmanuel (Matt. 1:23). So even in the pain of death, the brokenness of friendships, the sorrow of loneliness, the grief of infertility, the loss of light and joy… we can grieve with hope, because we know that Christ comes near and offers redemption to this broken world, that he cares deeply about the suffering of his people, he is Emmanuel, God with us, and one day we will be with him forever. We know there is hope because we know that this is not the end of the story.
“I’ve found that when I do the honest and hard work of lament, it keeps me from passing pain on to others because it helps me to express my pain before the Lord and to receive his comfort. But it also does something to my praise. There is an authentic praise that comes from the depth of suffering that is unlike any other praise.”
“There is a theology of suffering that runs through the black church, as I have experienced it, that definitely points to praise. It doesn’t forget the suffering. It doesn’t try to, as one of my dear professors Jaren Barrs, says it doesn't seek to heal our wounds lightly, but it accesses that pain and allows that pain to push us to greater praise.”
“I’ve been in the depths and have received the Lord’s comfort in my own brokenness and my own pain. So now, I’m able to extend that with a whole lot more grace and compassion than before. Not that I didn’t care before, but the caring is so much deeper. I think empathy requires us to access something from inside us and to have compassion for the one that is suffering.”
“Even if it’s joy, there’s more. This is just a taste. There's more joy. If there’s sorrow, this sorrow is working something in you. There’s more.”
“We’ve been conditioned to believe that what is visible is more real than what is unseen, and that’s just not biblical. We are told we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal.”
Lauren: It’s so easy to say “God is faithful” when he does what we want, right? But in those other areas, those hard areas, it can be a little more difficult to rehearse his faithfulness. Maybe for you right now it seems that the hard days outnumber the easy days. Maybe it feels difficult to rehearse the mighty acts of God. Maybe it feels impossible to say God is faithful because you just. can’t. see. it. But the truth is, God is no less worthy of our trust when we struggle to trust him. He is no less faithful when have to fight to see his faithfulness. His character is constant. His very name, Yahweh—I am that I am—proclaims his existence. All of Scripture tells of his true character, his faithful nature, and his fulfillment of his promises. The truth of God’s faithfulness is not any less true because of our slowness to believe it. As believers we are called to, as Vanessa said, “rehearse the mighty acts of God.” We see this in Scripture. God called the Israelites over and over again throughout the Old Testament to remember how he had saved them, to remember his name, to remember his character (Duet. 9, Ex. 13). David recalls the Lord’s faithfulness again and again throughout the Psalms (Psalm 103). And today, we too are called to remember—and to remind one another to remember—how God has been faithful: to us, to his people in all of redemptive history, and ultimately through Christ and his ultimate act of faithfulness. Friends, if we daily remind ourselves of who God is and how he has been faithful, it should become no more difficult to trust him in the heaviness and the struggles because we know him. We know he is always faithful. So may we remember—and call one another to remember—the mighty acts of God. May we rehearse the truth of Christ’s proved faithfulness through his ultimate act of love on the cross. And as we dwell on these things, may we come to know and trust and love God even more deeply.
“There is a freedom and a joy that I lose when I forget the eternal purpose of my work—that Christ, who is building his church, is sometimes pleased to use my hands to do it. When I put that in the wrong order, then I lose that joy. I’m not building anything of any value without him. There’s great joy for me only when my work is a worship to him.”
“The Lord hasn’t once called me to something that I could do on my own.”
“What I am taking into eternity is a hope that will be fully recognized and fully realized when I see Jesus face to face.”
“When I consider that scene where every tribe, every tongue, every nation… it’s almost more than I can comprehend...I get lost in thinking about what it looks like to be radically free from sin, and to be among every tribe, tongue, and nation… What it does it is creates a longing for me that usually ends in a ‘Come, Lord Jesus.’”
“Doing the messy work of community can also create some of that longing. Practically, being a part of that community and doing that work can shape our hearts and set our hearts and our affections towards eternity.”
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How does living with eternity in view change the way you walk through the joys and sorrows of this life?
How does fixing your eyes on eternity change how you engage with and encourage other believers who are walking through various joys and sorrows?
How does understanding God’s character affect how you journey through life?
What are some passages of Scripture that help you to fix your eyes on eternity?
What are you going to do or implement as a result of what you’ve learned this week?
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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