2 Corinthians 5:1-10: Groans Inward and Outward

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. - 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

When I've worked a little too hard in the yard, take a pause and then try to get going again, there are groans both silent (from my muscles) or out loud. The older I get, the more frequent the occasions to groan. When we groan, we could despair over our greater inability to get things done, or the greater pain which those things seem now to require. But Paul gives us another approach, which is see the groaning as a signpost of what is coming but we do not yet have. 

How do we know? Paul said that God has "fashioned us for this very purpose". What purpose? To recognize this burden and this groaning as signs we desire to live on but that our bodies are  not up to it. How strange it is that God should give us a body that will ultimately frustrate us by not being to deliver that which it and us long for. God knows that this is frustrating, which is why the Spirit came, as a deposit, a guarantee that what is coming-what God has promised is coming-is real because the Spirit is proof that something beyond death, decay, entropy-the natural order of things-will be overcome by God.

Here's the catch-we will spend that eternal life with God. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on our relationship with him. If Jesus is not palatable, then spending an eternity with him is not a reward but the most devilish of punishments. If Jesus is our heart's desire, when spending an eternity with him is the answer to the groaning and the burden.