Tag Archives: 2 Corinthians 4

Chapter-a-Day

Outward Appearances, Inward Realities

Leave a comment
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1X5CEZNC2plgBQDIp33Kay?si=egXbcZiDT7SJ_pLydqAJhg

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16 (NIV)

Around our house there is a lot of conversation about generations. In our company’s customer research we are regularly discovering that our clients’ customers are segmented into very different generational groups who have very different expectations and preferences. Companies who don’t recognize and address the differences risk losing business. Personally, I fear that if the institutional church does not recognize and address the differences we may risk losing souls.

For several years now, Wendy and I have followed the writing of Dr. Jonathan Haidt. He has been at the forefront of understanding the negative effects that smart phones have had on children. He was also among the first to cry the warning of what closing schools during COVID was doing to our children. He is also seeing how these things are creating differences in generations of children. Haidt has signed on a young woman named Freya India to his team. She has written an amazing post about Gen Z that everyone should read about why Gen Z will not look back with nostalgia at their own childhood, but rather they are nostalgic about the childhood of previous generations that they never had.

What’s fascinating to me as I ponder the emerging generation of young people is that they are arguably the product of the most blessed, advanced, and affluent society in the history of human civilization. Nevertheless, they are experiencing record levels of anxiety and depression.

This came to mind this morning as I read today’s chapter in which Paul shares with the believers in Corinth the troubles and sufferings that he and his companions have been experiencing as they tirelessly share the message of Jesus with others and lovingly concern themselves with the Corinthians’ well-being. Paul describes his daily realities as “hard pressed on every side…perplexed…persecuted…struck down.” Despite these external physical hardships, Paul says that they are “being renewed inwardly” daily.

As I read this, I thought what a contrast this is to the description that Haidt and India provide us with our current younger generation. Outwardly, it would appear that they are outwardly blessed with affluence, education, technology, safety, security, and health in ways and in levels that no generation before them has ever experienced. Nevertheless, they are inwardly wasting away. In today’s chapter Paul calls his sufferings “treasure” inside the “jar of clay” that is his body. It reminded me of a contrasting reality Ms. India wrote about recently:

I worry because young women like me were raised with only one vision of hell. Now our only nightmare is being restricted by religion, by a relationship, or burdened by responsibilities. But what if hell is also the opposite? What if hell isn’t the faith that makes you stay, but the doubt that makes you leave? What if sometimes the devil is not the voice keeping you trapped, but the one whispering that you are being restricted, wronged, held back—deserve a fresh start? Have we ever considered that the most dangerous ideology might not be the one asking us to have faith through hard things but the one training us to doubt what is good, to see something that should be treasured as a trap?

In the quiet this morning, my heart and mind are pondering how much all of us in this affluent, technologically advanced, safe, secure, and healthy modern reality are suffering the same malady as Gen Z, just not to the same extreme. Outwardly we appear to be healthy, wealthy, and blessed. Factually, we are. Is our “inward” reality the same?

Jesus repeatedly told His disciples that the requirement of being His follower was selflessness, sacrifice, service, and even suffering. For almost every one of His twelve disciples that included suffering excruciating death. It will be the same for Paul. Yet, Paul says his inward reality is Life and love that is renewed daily and flourishing.

God’s ways are not our ways.

As Paul put it, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I’m in daily need of this reminder.

Where are my eyes fixed this morning?

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

These chapter-a-day blog posts are also available via podcast on all major podcast platforms including Apple, Google, and Spotify! Simply go to your podcast platform and search for “Wayfarer Tom Vander Well.” If it’s not on your platform, please let me know!
Chapter-a-Day

Outward Groaning; Inward Growing

3 Comments

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16

For the past two months my life has been out of sync. You may have noticed that my posts have been more intermittent than usual. It started with the holidays when our kids and grandson, Milo, arrived home Scotland in early December. It was a joy having them with us for the month of December, though having a one-year-old (who is still trying to figure out normal sleep patterns) in the house tends to disrupt the normal schedule a bit. Then came Christmas, our daughter home from South Carolina, and, well, you get the picture.

I was looking forward to life getting back to normal after New Year’s. Then, on New Year’s Eve day, I was working out at Cross-Fit and I threw my back out on the rowing machine. Ugh. Unexpected and not fun at all. It’s been a slow recovery. A few days later, Wendy had surgery on her foot to take care of a pesky neuroma that’s been bothering her the past few years. That meant she was laid up on the couch with her foot up for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I developed a nasty chest cold that would not let go (still hasn’t completely). Wendy and I were quite a pair laying next to each other on the couch. Our house became a domestic M*A*S*H unit. Add to the mix a marathon week of business travel and some brand new responsibilities at work. Oh yes, and did I mention about 18 inches of now and sub-zero temperatures? Yada, yada, yada. Blah, blah, blah. Again, you get the picture.

One of the things that I’ve learned along this life journey is not to fight against the terrain I am traversing in the moment. I’ve learned to lean in and embrace each season and what it brings with it, even if it’s not what I want it to be. December was joyful disruption. It was a time to lean in to family, guests, and celebrations that fubar the normal flow of life and schedule. January has not been joyful disruption. It’s been a rocky road of injury, illness and the subsequent need to focus our energies on rest and recovery. Which has meant sleeping in a lot of mornings, and not getting to my regular chapter-a-day post.

And so, in the quiet this morning, I silently identified with Paul’s words, pasted at the top of this post. In the past few years I’ve noticed distinct changes in my body. I need more sleep than ever before. When I get sick, I require more rest. It takes a little longer to recuperate than before. I need regular, and more focused, exercise for my health and well-being. In other words, my body is showing the very natural signs of its age. Spiritually, however, I feel as though I’m in a time of unprecedented growth. My spirit feels more alive than ever. I’m making new discoveries. I find myself pushing further up, and further in. I’m less distracted by the silliness of this life, and more focused on Spirit and truth. It’s awesome.

Outwardly groaning, inwardly growing. That’s the terrain right now, and I’m embracing it. It is what it is. I’m sorry my posts have been a little sporadic of late. I’m getting back to normal. It’s just taking a little bit longer than I expected.

Cheers, my friend. Have a great week!

 

Chapter-a-Day

Fixing Our Eyes on Life

3 Comments

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)

This life journey definitely moves through different seasons and stages. As a parent I am watching our girls move through the turn into adulthood with the establishing of lives and careers. It’s a time filled with a heady mixture of adventure, excitement, doubt, faith, and hope. It carries with it a subtle sense of immortality. I think back to what my life looked like at their ages (and shake my head in disbelief).

As a child I am watching my parents trekking into life’s final stretch with all of the unknowns regarding how events will ultimately play out at the finish line. I’m watching the mixture of feelings, experiences, and emotions that they walk through, and I’m trying to be open to what I can learn from their examples.

Wendy and I are currently feeling the back stretch of life. Literally, I now need to stretch my back every day as my body begins its natural aging progression.

One of the most fascinating observations for me  of late is to watch how we and others handle the process of aging and the troubles associated with our natural, physical decline. Every person has their own journey, their own struggles, and their own path to walk. I’m trying hard not to be judgmental, yet I am noticing stark differences in the way individuals traverse the process of physical decay. I’m observing that it is a cocktail mixed with physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual ingredients.

In this morning’s chapter Paul addresses his own experience with life’s natural struggle of progressive decline. Having been pondering these things, it leapt off the page at me.

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

In Paul’s experience the physical and the spiritual coexist but are independent of one another. The physical continually declines while, in Christ, the spiritual continually grows. The former is in decay while the latter is budding into eternal Life. The key comes with where we choose to focus. Paul “fixes his eyes” on the spiritual with its perpetual growth and life, not on the physical and its perpetual decay.

This fits with what I have observed of late. Our thoughts and emotions  gravitate to wherever the eyes of our heart are “fixed.” If we are fixated on the grief and pains of physical decay then our thoughts and emotions are given to the pessimism and fatalism of impending death. If we, rather, reach further up and further in to fix our eyes on Life and Spirit, then our thoughts and emotions deal with our physical decline in a different manner.

Wendy and I read a piece in the Wall Street Journal a year or two ago about a group of friends in their 80’s. Together the group decided that when they joined together in conversation they each could say one thing about their present physical situation. After that, the conversation had to go elsewhere. It was their way of “fixing their eyes” on living and not on dying. What a great example.

This morning Wendy and I are preparing for a long holiday weekend at the lake with friends, fixing our eyes on life. We are planning to spend next week at the lake, and I’m going to be taking a week off of blogging to rest and live a little (right after I stretch my back).

Chapter-a-Day

Living for the Dot, or Living for the Line?

5 Comments

the dot on the lineSo 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 4:18 (NLT)

Many years ago I used an illustration while sharing the morning message in my home church. I stretched a piece of plain masking tape from the front of the church to the back of the church using a few chairs in the aisle to prop up the 75 feet or so of tape. I then spread out some pens on the floor and asked everyone to get up from their chairs, make a small dot on the tape with a pen, and write their name next to it.

I asked everyone that morning to imagine that the tape was a time line that continued on through the floor at the front of the stage as far as our eyes could see and out the back of the room to as far as our eyes could see. The tape was eternity, and our little dot on that time line was the 70, 80, or even 100 years that we will spend on this earth. The question I asked that morning was very simple: Are you living for the dot? Or, are you living for the line?

It is so easy to get wrapped up in momentary desires, circumstances, situations, troubles, and issues. But, those things are typically just insignificant blips on the radar when you consider them in light of eternity. We all need a little perspective adjustment from time to time, allowing our heart and mind to consider our immediate troubles in light of God’s Grand Scheme.

Today I’m reminding myself that my immediate troubles are a minute speck on a fleck of ink on a small dot on the masking tape timeline of eternity.

Related articles