“We don’t 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 Cor. 4:16-18)
Lord Jesus, I confess a bit of weariness when I hear believers utter the phrase, “things are getting worse and worse.” What usually follows is a downward spiral of fear edging out faith as the predominant orientation towards life. Next comes the need to determine who to mostly blame for the collapse of “life as it used to be.” Then comes the withdrawal of believers into not-so-holy huddles—disengaging from the culture, growing suspicious about new neighbors, and waiting, with “Chicken Little,” for “the sky to fall.”
Jesus, the “sky isn’t going to fall,” you are going to split the sky with your coming (Rev. 6:14)—on the Day you return to eradicate evil and finish making all things new. Until then, life everywhere is marked with the tension of the “already and not yet.” By your resurrection, your Kingdom reign has “already” been inaugurated, and the Gospel is going forth to the nations. But “not yet” has your unshakable Kingdom come in fullness—but it most assuredly, gloriously, wondrously will.
Of course—looking at things on the surface, life feels scary, threatening, and quite discouraging. It always has since the Fall. It always will until you return. That’s why you tell us not to fix our eyes merely on what we see, but on what you’ve promised. We aren’t to be naïve or blasé, or live in denial. We are to live and love as your people, in our moment, in our place, until the Day. So Very Amen.