We Nurture An Eternal Perspective

We Nurture An Eternal Perspective

Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever! –2 Corinthians 4:16-17

Perspective. That’s what our friend Bill Lee offered to me and to everyone else who attended the funeral service for his wife, Carol Ann. Bill told us how he had responded to his children’s anguish over how long the future seemed before they would see their mom again. Holding up a small silver keepsake tube, he told his children, “This tube represents time.” Then, pointing to progressive points on the tube, he explained, “Imagine here is where Mom was born, and here is where you were born. Right here is where Mom died, and somewhere out here is where you and I will die and go to heaven.” Then, recalling a cross-country trip their family had taken two weeks before Carol Ann died, he said, “Now imagine a string extending from the tube out the door, down the street, and across the miles of Tennessee through the Midwest and across the Rocky Mountains and up into the stars. The time you will spend without your mom is shorter than the length of this tube, but the time you will spend with Mom in eternity is like the string that goes on and on and never ends.” Putting the years of life without her in perspective of eternity with her made the time of waiting seem bearable and even brief.

When we read Paul’s description of his troubles as “small” and that they “won’t last very long,” we wonder if he really knew what it is like to suffer. But the truth is that Paul’s suffering included being imprisoned, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, robbed, hungry, thirsty, cold, and naked—none of which I would describe as insignificant or brief. It is hard for us to understand how he could view these things as inconsequential, isn’t it? But he saw them through the perspective of eternity, in light of the glory to come. Our problem is not so much in seeing our current affliction as light or our suffering as long, but that we think so little of eternity. The truth is, if we were to live for a hundred years and suffer significantly every day of our lives, by the measure of eternity, it would be just a moment. So while we wait, we nurture an eternal perspective, a view in which our struggles look small and brief in comparison to the vast joys and eternal satisfaction of forever-life with God.

My Perspective Giver, as I wait for your deliverance, help me to see my troubles as small and brief in light of the glory of eternity so I won’t give up.

DIGGING DEEPER