SCRIPTURE: Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV

THOUGHT: This passage makes me think of spring. Our tulips are up an inch or so, and our daffodils are about to bloom. Trees that look lifeless will soon flower and leaf out if we get another couple 70-degree days like yesterday. It is time for the renewal of things in Tennessee, and it makes me long to shed my own wrinkles, get out the sidewalk chalk, and play hopscotch in the warm sunshine.

“Long” is the operative word, however, because human renewal may be the greatest mystery in all of Scripture. How is it possible to be wasting away on the outside, yet being renewed inside? And yet, this is the promise of Scripture for those who love God. In this same passage, Paul talks about not looking at what is visible, but at what is unseen – the difference between what doesn’t last and what goes on into eternity.

Partially responsible for the wasting away is something Paul calls light and momentary trouble, although I find it ironic given what his body went through — it wasn’t light and it didn’t seem momentary. In another irony, he says the very thing that causes outer deterioration also causes inner renewal – the light and momentary troubles “are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all (v. 17).”

Without the cold of winter or the death of the seed pod, there can be no spring, and maybe it works that way for humans too. Without cold, adverse weather, there can be no renewal. God is working glory – eternal glory – into the soil of our hearts. We may look like the wreck of Hector, but we feel like hopscotch.

PRAYER: By faith, without seeing buds and blossoms and green leaves, I trust that you are working glory into my heart, Lord. Keep working it in, and I’ll keep working it out, by your grace. I’ll keep my eyes on what is eternal, rather than focusing on and fussing about the temporary packaging.