The Long Look at Our Afflictions

The Long Look at Our Afflictions

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

2 Corinthians 4:17

The more we are able to understand temporal things from the eternal perspective, the better off we will be.  Nowhere is this eternal perspective more practically valuable than in the matter of our suffering afflictions.  Certainly one very immediate observation which we can make is that our afflictions are that which we have in common with others.  Whatever their origins or form, they are part of our common humanity.  Looking at it from the perspective of our being part of the Church we can say that we share afflictions in common with saints both past and present.  Throughout the sacred record there is the abundant testimony to the suffering of the people of God.  It ought to be even more heartening to reflect upon the fact that we also have in Christ a Fellow Sufferer.  Part of the whole of what it meant for Christ to become a man was that He was a Fellow Sufferer with those of us whom He came to redeem.  We are not alone, and should therefore take heart; for others empathize with us.

There is also the fact that if we take the eternal view of our afflictions, then we must inevitably view them both light and brief.  They are light in the sense that God determines their weight and by His Spirit enables us to bare them.  Also, they are brief because God limits their duration.  At His word those afflictions must cease.  Finally, our afflictions are for a purpose.  We can more easily bear what we know occurs with good reason.  Our afflictions ‘work’ and that ‘for us.’  They ‘work’ both ‘exceedingly’ and ‘eternally.’  They also ‘work’ substantially and gloriously.  Our appropriation of these things by faith will enable us to more graciously endure our afflictions.

Great God and Loving Savior,

give us that grace

which enables us

to endure afflictions

with fullness of faith.

Where the Bush is Burning

Tomm Tice