SCRIPTURE THAT I'M WRESTLING WITH TODAY...

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight 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." (2 Corinthians 4: 16-18, ESV)

How is the outer nature of the church (the BODY of Christ) wasting away today? We look to signs of loss in our tribe of Lutherans---500,000 members lost in 15 years. No significant growth. Flat, stagnant financial giving. Arguments over minor things that split families, congregations, and synods. We are tempted to believe that our destruction is our inevitable future. To some degree it is our future, but is this all we pay attention to? This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for something greater ... and it always has.

"Our inner nature is being renewed day by day." Do we stop to look and appreciate how God is renewing our inner nature? A five year old realizes God's love greater than a 50 year old, a congregation makes the hard decision to move from maintenance to mission, a dying church gives away its property to a new mission start, new leaders are filled with energy about God's future for the world. Renewal happens, and it's not of anything that we do. God renews, restores, and replenishes.

How do we embrace renewal when the pain of the wasting away of our outer nature can be so great at times? How do we look forward to the eternal weight of glory when the slight momentary affliction sends searing pain that shuts down vision? How does our renewal embrace our wasting away instead of creating an escapist compartment where we experience neither renewal or affliction? How does renewal help us not to lose heart?