Till We Are Home

Your pain today tells a story about tomorrow. Are you ready to listen?

These past few days I chewed a little bit more on the thoughts I wrote in the past couple of blog entries. I thought a little more on “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,” (2 Cor 4:17) in conjunction with the line “Be still, my soul! your Jesus can repay from his own fullness all he takes away,” from the hymn Be Still, My Soul.

Now, I don’t know what eternity “tastes like” just yet. I take the truth from 2 Corinthians 4 in faith that all the sorrows we feel here on earth will seem light and momentary. I take it in faith that to experience eternity one day will come when Jesus returns to bring me home (Jn 5:28-29, 1 Thess 4:16-17). Further, I take it in faith that I will be one of the ones Jesus brings home only because God ordained that I would trust that Christ paid the penalty for my sin and adopted me into His family (Jn 1:12-13, Rom 5:1-2, Eph 1:4-5, 2:1-10).

I trust Him to carry out these promises in the Bible because He is God and said it will be so. I know, then, that the truth of 2 Corinthians 4 will come because I believe He is faithful to make that my reality one day…and I believe my suffering and sorrow tell the story of this reality in a strange and upside-down way. 

Let me explain.

What I know now experientially is the severe pang of sorrow and suffering brought on by calamities in my life. I’ve experienced sorrows of varying kinds in several ways from abandonment by my father as a child, losing several family members over the years, caring for both our mothers through dementia, watching and enduring and caring for my own wife through two bouts with cancer, and greatly in the loss of my daughter. These are the “highlights”, so to speak, of sorrowful events we’ve endured over the years. 

All God ordained.

All very painful. 

So, I’ve known…we’ve known, a little bit about the pain of loss. About the profound sorrow that comes from living in a sinful world. And, let me tell you, all of these afflictions truly hurt. But, let’s go back to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17. He says this affliction, this pain will feel light…and momentary. 

Light. 

Momentary. 

How could this pain that I know feel light and momentary one day when today it feels heavy and deep? It can only be true if what the hymn sings is true, too…that Jesus will fill this pain, this emptiness from His own fulness. 

Ok, so going back to what I know experientially…I know my pain today. I know what it feels like to feel untethered to truth. I feel the great sadness that comes from calamity. I feel the gaping hole in my heart because my little one is no longer here. I know my pain today. 

And for this pain to feel light and momentary one day MUST mean that Jesus is that glorious. Jesus must be that magnificent. Jesus must be that…good. This is the story our pain tells us: in our very real experience of deep pain, the upside-down message flips our pain on its head and tells us that we will experience that same level, yet way more, in how great our God is.

This great pain today means greater joy in Christ tomorrow.

I think this is one of suffering’s functions…it’s the story that our pain tries to tell us. We who suffer and experience calamity here on earth know how painful trials can be. We know pain. We experience pain. Yet…

Yet, that pain will one day feel as if it were only a dream.

That pain will be swallowed up whole in the face of Jesus Christ. Though we feel and know this horrific pain now, we can take comfort in the fact that as great as that pain feels now, the greatness and gloriousness and goodness and magnificence of Jesus will far outweigh it as if it were just a trifle. This is what Paul means when he says our affliction today will feel as if it were light and momentary. The story our pain tells us today says in light of experiencing our Christ in eternity future whose glory and greatness far outweigh this very real pain we feel today, our afflictions will have been nothing but light and momentary.

We will exchange this pain for glory one day. And if this pain we feel today feels rottenly excruciating, then we can trust that one day we will know a glory that far exceeds this pain when we see Him face-to-face. 

Our pain today tells of a greater glory and magnificence tomorrow.

So hold on, dear brother or sister…you who feel the atrocities of a sinful world. This pain you feel won’t always be, but you must run to Him as your shelter. And listen to the pain today tell the story of the much greater glory to come…be patient and wait for Him through the pain…

Till we are home…