Synthesis and Application — Living Between the Contractions. Now, in this final installment, we’ll synthesize everything we’ve learned and ask the crucial questions: What does this metaphor teach us about God’s purposes in history? How should it shape our understanding of suffering? What does it mean to live faithfully and hopefully in “the labor pains” today? And when the new creation is finally born and the Kingdom arrives in fullness, what will we have learned from the long labor of history?