Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV
Life experience tells that that things come and go. There is a time for good and there’s a time for bad, and sometimes they happen simultaneously. One thing is for sure and that is that we will always face trouble and difficulties at some time in our lives. It is an unfortunate fact of life, but that doesn’t mean that God has left us when we go through them. He gives us grace to endure them and works his glory – his character – in us through them. He uses suffering and hardship to refine us as silver and gold are purified through the furnace. He is more interested in us becoming Christlike than us being comfortable. Our eternal benefit concerns him more than our temporal satisfaction. We often don’t understand that because we’re looking at things in the wrong way. We don’t see him answer our prayers in the way we think he should and think that he’s forsaken us. He doesn’t remove us from our hardships and we assume that he doesn’t care. However, Paul, who endured intense persecutions and numerous other trials and difficulties, calls them light and momentary troubles. He saw them in the light of the eternal glory that is yet to be revealed. He wrote to the church in Rome: “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18 NIV)
What are you focusing on? The hardships and temporal things of your life, or on the eternal glory that you’ll be inheriting in Christ? What you focus on won’t change your present situation, but it will give you great hope to go through it with expectant joy. If someone is locked in a dark room without any knowledge or hope of getting out of there he will want to give up on life. However, if he receives news that he is to be freed soon his spirits rise and he lives in expectant hope focusing on the day that he’ll be free.
What are you focusing on?