Our Light Affliction

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:2

Song: We Have An Anchor

Dogs barking at two o’clock in the morning and cars cutting us off on the freeway have a way of testing our spirituality. It’s kind of embarrassing actually. Our patience runs thin over such trivial matters. Anger ruptures the surface with volcanic force spewing vituperations of ash and smoke. The lava barely has time to cool before another lilliputian inconvenience works itself under our crust and we’re heaping coals and belching fire again.

Maybe you’re of a different climate. Your reaction to adversity is cool indifference—when things don’t go your way, you retreat into hibernation. Perhaps you’re the type whose mood one day is sunny and warm and the next in the eye of a tropic depression. Still yet, you may be that rare personality whom others avoid because like the city of Seattle you forecast rain 360 days a year.

How short is our fuse! How often we despair! How small is our faith! How weak our vision!

The apostle who five times received thirty-nine lashes, thrice beaten with rods and shipwrecked, once stoned, stranded a night in the deep; often on journeys and in perils of waters, robbers, countrymen, Gentiles, city folk, wilderness, sea, and false brethren; in weariness, toil, sleeplessness, hunger, thirst, fastings, cold and nakedness. This same apostle wrote of “our light affliction.”

Methinks he saw the goal much better than me.

Jason Moore