BG another great message - thanks for sharing. I read this before I left for lunch today and was really giving it some thought. This whole thing is just temporary. I often tell my H that - its just a bump in the road of life. (He looks at me like I am insane when I say this.) We can chose to let the bump side track us or jump right back on the road that we were meant to travel.
Anyway, while I was on break, I read a chapter in my current book. It's Max Lucado's It's Not about Me. I was reading along and I read a verse that sounded very similar to this message. It was from 2 Cor 4:17 (previous verse than in your devotion). I felt it was funny that I just happen to read this chapter today - it seems that when I read the message of some of these devotions, the verses continue to pop up over and over. Its like God is saying, "Here it is again in case you missed it the first time!!"
The chapter in the book was entitled Just a Moment. It talked about how our life, in comparison to God's eternal presense, is just a moment. I wanted to share a little of the message.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Heaven would be every grain of sand on every beach on earth, plus more. Earthly life, by contrast, would be one hundredth of one grain of sand...."Just a moment."
Wasn't this the phrase of choice for Paul? "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Cor 4:17
(Talks a little about Pauls trials and our earthly problems. I'll skip ahead some.)
(Earthly councel would say its "all about me, life is short - get out.")
God's wisdom, however, says, "Life is short - stay in."
The brevity of life grants power to abide, not an excuse to bail. Fleeting days don't justify fleeing problems. Fleeting days strengthen us to endure problems. Will your problems pass? No guarantee they will. Will your pain cease? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But heaven gives this promise: "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor 4:17).
The words weight of glory conjure up images of the ancient pan scale.....(skipping ahead some)
God does the same with your struggles. On one side he stacks all your burdens.... Stack them up, and watch one side of the pan scale plummet.
Now witness God's response. Does he remove them? Eliminate the burdens? No, rather than take them, he offsets them. He places an eternal weight of glory on the other side. Endless joy. Measureless peace. An eternity of him. Watch what happens as he sets eternity on your scale.
Everything changes! The burdens lift. The heavy becomes light when weighed against eternity. If life is "just a moment," can't we endure any challenge for a moment.
Can't we wait for our peace? It's not about us anyway. And it's certainly not about now. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sorry so long, but I thought it was a message worth sharing. Yes, what we are all going through is tough. God will not take this away from us, but he promises us peace and joy if we see it through. Bear this moment of pain, for an eternity of peace and joy. When you think of it that way, I think it is worth it. We may experience much pain in our earthly life, but if we follow God's plan and live as he asks, we will be rewarded with that eternal peace and joy.
Let me end with the NIV version of 2 Corinthians 4: 16 - 18. (I thought it was a more understandable version.) "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet in wardly 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. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
