I wouldn’t put this on a resume, but I am quite good at wrapping my mind and emotions around the tough things in life. That can be a good quality.  It can also get me in a lot of trouble.  I am able to shoulder burdens that are rightfully mine to carry, and burdens that I shouldn’t pick up–but do anyway.  I do not have to look very far to find a hurt, in the world, in someone close to me, or myself, or my neighbor’s cat, that needs thought and attention.

With that in mind, this verse about affliction challenges my “burden-bearing” mentality. II Cor 4:17 reads, “for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison…”

Light?  Momentary?  Don’t those words trivialize the real sorrow and crushing burdens that people bear for years – for decades?  Decades of dreams that don’t materialize.  A lifetime of pain from a broken body, an incurable illness, or a broken mind.  Decades of loneliness.  Decades of poverty…all of these real burdens that crush the spirit.

Yet, the Bible calls what I consider tragedies light, momentary afflictions. Light?  Momentary?  How could it be?

It is at the moment when I can’t figure out where the Bible is coming from that I need to carefully study and take in these words.  I need these words to literally change my thinking, to look at life the way God does.  Perhaps he does not want me to wrap myself up in being weighed down, contemplating the burdens of life, but to consider them, as He does, light and momentary in light of the eternal glory prepared for us.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self  is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.  II Cor. 4:16-18