Recently, my attention has been drawn time and time again to the fact that this life is temporary. I've been more or less camped out in II Corinthians 4 and 5. I find myself pulling my Bible out time and time again to read it just one more time, to make sure this life really isn't the whole story. You see, all around me this week, people are hurting.
This week, I'll attend another funeral for a family member, the third one this year. This week, a sweet six year old lays in a hospital bed, waiting to find out why her kidney is three times its normal size. This week, a strong 18 year old athlete battles for his life against an aggressive cancer. This week, a 57 year old man battles viral meningitis, and both of his pregnant daughters pray he lives to know his grandchildren.
And these are just the situations touching people I love. So you can imagine why I need to know that this is not the end. This isn't the whole story. There's got to be more.
"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying around in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body."
In the 1990's, there was a catchy youth camp song based on that passage with a chorus that went, "Yes, Lord; Yes, Lord; Yes, yes, Lord!" We'd all bop our heads and laugh and sing along, sometimes almost shouting. Today, I sit quietly, reading over and over again as the weight of the passage washes over me.
We are afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down, always carrying death around with us ...
That's the part I get. I understand. I identify. I feel. I experience. I know.
But that's just the beginning. That's not the end. It's not even the point. All of it is achieving a much larger purpose in my life, in the lives of those suffering directly, and in the lives of those standing by watching.
"For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart, but through our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison."
It's really easy for me to smile and tell someone that my life is all for the glory of God when the proverbial sun is shining. I mean, after all, I am, "an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor." But what about when I'm crushed and perplexed and afflicted and struck down? Where's the glory then? That's when the glory is in my favorite word: Hope, "looking not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."
Evidently, God purposefully allows us to be uncomfortable on this earth, something about wanting us to long for more, to long for our home with Him. Can you believe that?
"For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ... For indeed, while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life."
So, this trouble all around me, in the lives of faithful believers, is able to accomplish at least two things. One, a dying world may see and believe. When staring death in the face, we want nothing more than to know that it's not the end. For the believer, there is a far better future on the other side of the grave. Two, we are reminded that this is not our permanent home. Whether we're here 6 years or 99, it's all temporary, light and momentary. And the pain of this world only serves to make us long for the next.
"For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died,; and he died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf."
No comments:
Post a Comment