Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (2 Cor 4:16)
My dear friend Robb’s earthly body died from skin cancer in 2006. I will never forget him, he was and is a tremendous man of God who was integral and had a real, living faith. He was in his early 20s when he passed away, and I am still close friends with his brothers.
One evening, not long before his earthly body died, I visited him at St George’s Hospital in London. He looked very fragile and I didn’t want to overstay my time because he was so tired. At one point, I mumbled something about not going to a party that night. “Why not?” He suddenly sounded very sharp, and I could see him scowling in the gloom of the sterile cancer ward. I didn’t know how to reply. Because you are dying was the obvious answer. It seemed disrespectful and distasteful to consider parties when a close friend had but a few days left here on Earth.
In the years that have followed, after the metamorphosis of his clay into a heavenly, eternal body, I understand what he was saying. It’s so easy to look at the thorns that life here-and-now throws at us, or to look at the decaying state of the flesh we are dressed up in. But we have every reason in ALL circumstances to look to life itself: Jesus, who came to give “life in all its fullness.” [his words]
I wrote a list a few months back of all the things worrying me that day: a double tooth abscess, my wife, the welfare of my kids and elderly mum, trying and failing to make enough money, trying and failing to not want more money. Thinking about food too much. Blood sugar level swings from diabetes. A lack of exercise. The intensity of making sure I get medications right, every time, several times per day and every day… Nevermind a daily ‘to do list’, it was like a daily doom list!
And yet Jesus said: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest? Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!”
I remember an older preacher once saying, “You spend your whole young life wanting things and then, as soon as you get older, realise they’re all meaningless.” The thorns and the flesh are like sand sifting through our hands. We worry about having enough money for household bills – then the money comes from somewhere. We worry about our career – but we’re always working somehow. We worry about our loved ones – but they seem happy enough. We worry about a hospital appointment – then it ends. We worry about a surgical procedure – then it’s over. We worry about dying, then it’s finished – we are resurrected.
“Even when our faith is small, trusting Jesus, that is all” – that old hymn says it all. When Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life”, he didn’t mean to introduce a gloomy saying for religious funerals. He spoke inherent truth relevant for every moment in daily life. We get so distracted by the little things that mock our peace – our illnesses, foibles and failures, and the larger, pervading darkness. Even so, I believe the Lord doesn’t want us to look at the thorns, or the dying flesh, but to fix our gaze uprightly towards Him!
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Read and reflect on 2 Corinthians 12: 1 – 10
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