While Jesus’s disciples were sorrowful for His death, Jesus promised them joy at His resurrection.

"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." - John 16:21-22 KJV

Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection is like the new birth of water and of the Spirit. When we pray the kind of prayer that is like a woman in travail (labor), we can expect joy, knowing souls are going to be born into the kingdom of God.

Travailing prayer births souls. This kind of prayer is in sorrow, with weeping, consuming physically. Yet when a soul is born, the joy is the reward that no man can take from us!

Sometimes, there must be travail again for the soul that has turned from God.

"My little children, of whom I travail [labor] in birth again until Christ be formed in you," - Galatians 4:19 KJV

Travailing prayer, once again, is worth the sorrow and the labor, for the joy we share when the backslider returns to God!

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." - Luke 15:7