Glory Outweighs Sorrow


This week after watching what was falsely reported about some Catholic high school students from Covington, Kentucky, I was reminded that there is more to life than what meets the eye. Much attention is given to all being right with the world. The term “Political Correctness” or “PC” is the catch phrase used these days to describe situations always in popular, upbeat and non-offensive ways. Some politicians in the past 25 years have begun to push the country in a direction that will to put government in charge of making everything for everybody—“OK.” We all want life to be “OK”. The flaw in this expectation is everything is “NOT OK.” That statement doesn’t mean I’m a pessimist or that I only see the glass half empty. It simply means that my expectations for “OK” are not based on what kind of day I’m having or if someone spoke to me in PC terms, but are based on what kind of day it is. My view is: “This is the day the LORD has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). God’s Word is clear each day you are given has value—it is “OK.” That means that if the day brings deep sorrow and failure or great joy and success it is a day that God has made—either way there is value. “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.” (Psalm 90:12)

Christ-followers, most of our attention is about looking forward, not back. Because looking forward we see what awaits us—a crown, and onward is the goal. The grand object of the eye of our faith is looking to the future with hope, with joy, for comfort, and godly love. Looking into the future we see the body of sin and death destroyed, the soul made perfect, and because of the blood of Jesus Christ are fit to be a participant of the inheritance of the saints in light.

Christ-follower, when you find yourself thinking this day has not been an “OK” day, centering your thoughts on your future in Christ may well relieve the darkness of the past and the gloom of the present. The joys of heaven will surely compensate for the sorrows of earth. The apostle Paul states that there is more here than meets the eye. “For our present troubles are small and won't last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

"When the world my heart is rending
With its heaviest storm of care,
My glad thoughts to heaven ascending,
Find a refuge from despair.
Faith's bright vision shall sustain me
Till life's pilgrimage is past;
Fears may vex and troubles pain me,
I shall reach my home at last."
       Charles H. Spurgeon



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