“16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
-2 Corinthians 4:16–18 (ESV)
This text is by far my personal favorite of all Scriptures. I consider it to be the motto that drives me through every obstacle, every pain, every trial, and every tragedy of life’s war, as I believe it should be for all Christians in this world. Over the past several years of digging deeper and deeper into this mineshaft, I have come to discover that the darker life gets, the brighter Paul’s words shine. How quickly can calamity dim our view of Scripture’s beauty! When the test comes back and the doctor tells you that the cancer has grown past the point of being treated… When the police call you in the middle of the night to tell you that your only child has been killed by a drunk driver, … When your spouse of 30 years confesses their unfaithfulness, … All and many more are moments when the ground beneath you quakes and your heart breaks beyond repair leading you to view joyful texts as anything but joyous. The stories you heard from your pastor on Sunday morning that left you walking out of church feeling motivated at once tarnish and leave you devoid of any feeling whatsoever. The reality is that your world is in pieces!
Perhaps this article has found you in that dark place. If it has, I want to shine some light into your pit of despair. God knows and understands your pain. He knows and understands the paralyzing impact that it brings upon you. He knows and understands in such detail that He has preeminently provided for you in your moment of unspeakable sorrow. He delivers through this text that we read here in 2 Corinthians, for He spoke the words for these very moments of our lives, brothers and sisters. You see, mediocre storytelling might very well provide a sufficient snack in times of vigor; such a snack will always fail to nourish us in times of plague. Understand that we need real food–not reinforcement of our already overly abundant false confidence–to survive famine of the soul. And that’s what this text is for us: Food that will feed our souls for a lifetime, even ones spent in pain! The steadfast Bread of Life!
Now that we know its purpose, let’s discuss what the text is actually saying. Paul starts off with reminding us about the truth of nature. In this life, our valued bodies will only age. They will wither away like leaves in the fall. But our invaluable souls will be renewed everyday. A question which that truth may bring to mind is “Why does my soul need to be renewed day by day if it does not wither away like my body does?” The exact reason the text is there in the first place is to answer that common question, “because souls weaken, and hearts are lost”. However, in verse 17, we are given the grounds for why we shouldn’t lose heart despite our bodies wasting away and our souls needing to be renewed: “For this light momentary AFFLICTION IS PREPARING FOR US an eternal weight of GLORY beyond ALL comparison.” Paul brings us great and mighty truths for our souls in this verse. The first is that, in comparison to the glory that resides in eternity, our pains–both as great and small as we perceive them to be–are actually all little and brief…so much so, that they are not even worth comparing to the glory that eternity will bring.
This leads us to the next great blessing of this verse: Though our pains are light and temporary, they are neither useless nor meaningless to God. In fact, He USES them, and He uses them FOR US! Meaning…when we receive world shattering news and think our lives have been dumped into ruins, He is WORKING FOR US! He is “PREPARING for us an eternal weight of glory”. So every single pain in our lives, from disturbances, diseases, to deaths are all being used by God to build up these unimaginable, indescribable, and incomparable glories into which the King of all Glories WILL one day invite us to dwell alongside Him in His Kingdom of all Glories! Absorbing this assurance may make you only grow more impatient in your desire for that eternal weight.. A deep sense of longing would be the understandable and appropriate response to those truths! Who could read such a truth and not want it to come to immediate fulfillment?! I believe that in His foreknowledge, God provides for us instruction on what we need to do while we wait for verse 17 to finally arrive.
We are to “ look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.” And the reason we are to do that is because, “ the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” In other words, we are to look beyond what the eyes of the flesh see. Instead of looking at the miseries in our lives and saying, “This pain is pointless! God is just standing there watching but He’s not doing anything!” We should look at it through the eyes of the Spirit and remind ourselves of the sweet truths of this text, “This pain is NOT meaningless! For God is preparing FOR ME an eternal weight of Glory!”
So, struggling saint and troubled soul, I pray that as you have read this, God has used my writing in the way he guided my heart through His Word: to remind you that there is a great light up above your dark pit of pain. And as It has for my life, that light–once you look to it–will forever overcome, outlast, and in every way, outshine the darkness!