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. 2 Corinthians 4:16-17
God doesn’t merely say that someday we’ll get over or forget our light and momentary troubles. He says they’re purposeful, not random or useless, based on the truth of God’s eternal benefits for us.
If we had no eternal future as resurrected people living with King Jesus, then our present sufferings would be ultimately useless. With Christ’s promise, however, no present suffering – regardless of its scope – will prove worthless. Such sufferings are actually a means to an end: incalculable future goodness and everlasting gladness.
merlin now: Suffice it to say now as a matter of fact, even though America has Christian laurels far surpassing any other nation on earth, that we now as a paper tiger are being bombarded by swirling uncertainities, even atrocities, perhaps surpassing even those of the Third Reich, while we now ourselves pursue what is truth and reality, following our past century of global bullying and fostering lies and deception both within our nation and around the world, such that today I am reminded of our fragility on the world stage by the February 7 reading from “My Utmost For His Highest.” Appropriately named “Spiritual Dejection” based on Cleopas’s statements to their apparently “yet in the dark” unknown travel companion on their Sunday afternoon Emmaus stroll as recorded in Luke 24:21, the text states “We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.”
The Utmost reading continues “Every fact that the disciples stated was right, but the conclusions they drew from those facts were wrong. Anything that has even a hint of dejection spiritually is always wrong. If I am depressed or burdened, I am to blame, not God or anyone else.
Dejection stems from one of two sources – I have either satisfied a lust or I have not had it satisfied. In either case, dejection is the result. Lust means “I must have it at once.” Spiritual lust causes me to demand an answer from God, instead of seeking God himself who gives the answer.
What have I been hoping or trusting God would do? Is today “the third day” and He has still not done what I expected? Am I therefore justified in being dejected and in blaming God? Whenever we insist that God should give an answer to prayer we are off track. The purpose of prayer is that we get a hold of God, not of the answer!
It is impossible to be well physically and to be dejected, because dejection is a sign of sickness. This is also true spiritually. Dejection spiritually is WRONG, and we are always to blame for it!
We look for visions from heaven and for earth – shaking events to see God’s power. Even the fact that we are dejected (perhaps in a not so temporary tizzie?) is proof that we do this. Yet how often do we take time to listen, reflect, and talk with God who is always there with us in all our everyday events and in our spheres of influence with all those persons about us. He is waiting for us to obey, and do the task He has placed closest to us, and when we do, perhaps as when bread was broken after traveling the road to Emmaus, our hearts too will burn within us.
One of the most amazing revelations of God comes to us when we learn that it is in the everyday things of life, be they world catastrophes, national trauma, personal tragedies, a congregational discernment, planning a summer vacation, or even sharing the Gospel and being rebuffed, that the deity of Christ is realized, understood, as we are transformed by his Holy Spirit. Once we’re filled with His wonder and righteousness, the spirit of dejection simply fades away; even while we’re being continually bombarded by the deceit, blasphemy, and iniquity paraded about us, and quite possibly, even by persecution, whether from the world, or even the tares or false prophets from within, until the harvest begins. Remember Jesus’ words that are applicable to all of us, regardless of our situation or source of persecution, as recorded in John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if ye love one another.”
BOTTOM LINE:
“While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, forseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.” Timothy Keller (9/23/50-5/19/23)
Truth: A Bigger View of God’s Word, Randy Alcorn, 2017, Pg 52 Harvest House.