temporary

The word temporary has been bouncing around in my head and my heart this week.  What a relief to see the challenges in my life as temporary!  Our human perspectives tend to make us believe that our struggles will never end and there is no relief in sight.  We live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with fear and hurt and disappointment, and it appears to many people that there is only one way to make the pain stop.  I'm here to tell you that suicide is NOT the answer, Jesus is!  There is hope in Jesus! 

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 says...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.

There are two big things that I hold onto in those verses.  #1 My present struggles are small and they won't last long from the perspective of eternity.  #2 If my gaze (and my thoughts) are set on my problems, the problems are going to seem to grow.  My gaze (and my thoughts) should be fixed on Jesus!

As I pondered the word temporary and the verses in 2 Corinthians, I began to contemplate the things that are eternal.  The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God stands forever.  (Isaiah 40:8)  Heaven and earth will disappear, but my (Jesus) words will never disappear.  (Matthew 24:35) 

If you are looking for hope, open a Bible.  The Word of God is eternal, and even though it was written thousands of years ago, it is truth for us today!  Our first response when we feel fear, anxiety, rejection, hopelessness, or anything else that is NOT from God, should be to open our Bibles and read the eternal words of God to us.  (By the way, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are from God.  Anything else is from the devil!) 

There is hope!  Our difficulties are temporary!  We should fix our eyes on Jesus and He will guide us through this life on earth!