Running Strong

Therefore we do not 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 what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor. 4:16-18

The first line grabs me by the throat. Therefore we do not lose heart. Somebody knows how not to lose heart? I’m all ears.

For we are losing heart. All of us. Daily. It is the single most unifying quality shared by the human race on the planet at this time. We are losing—or we have already lost—heart. That glorious, resilient image of God in us is fading, fading, fading away. And this man claims to know a way out.

So, how, Paul—how? How do we not lose heart?

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. 2 Cor. 4:18

What? I let out a sigh of disappointment. Now that’s helpful. “Look at what you cannot see.” That sounds like Eastern mysticism, that sort of wispy wisdom dripping in spirituality but completely inapplicable to our lives. Life is an illusion. Look at what you cannot see. What can this mean? Remembering that a little humility can take me a long way, I give it another go.

This wise old seer is saying that there is a way of looking at life, and that those who discover it are able to live from the heart no matter what. How do we do this? By seeing with the eyes of the heart. Later in life, writing from prison to some friends he was deeply concerned about, Paul said, I pray . . . that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” Eph. 1:18.

(Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, p. 21–23)

Before he promised us life, Jesus warned that a thief would try to steal, kill, and destroy it.

How come we don’t think that the thief then actually steals, kills, and destroys? You won’t understand your life, you won’t see clearly what has happened to you or how to live forward from here, unless you see it as battle.

A war against your heart.

And you are going to need your whole heart for what’s coming next. I don’t mean what’s coming next in the story I’m telling. I mean what’s coming next in the life you’re living. There are a few things I know, and one thing I do know is this: we don’t see thing as clearly as we ought to. As we need to.

We don’t understand what’s happing around us or to us or to those we love, and we are practically clueless when it comes to the weight of our own lives and the glory that’s being … held back.

We don’t see clearly because we don’t see with the eyes of our heart.

(Waking the Dead by John Eldredge p 18 )

Until we come to terms with war as the context of our days we will not understand life.

We will misinterpret 90 percent of what is happening around us and to us. It will be very hard to believe that God’s intentions toward us are life abundant; it will be even harder not to feel that somehow we are just blowing it.

Worse, we will begin to accept some really awful things about God. That four-year-old girl being molested by her daddy – that is “God’s will“? That ugly divorce that tore your family apart – God wanted that to happen too? And that plane crash that took the lives of so many – that was desired by God?

Most people get stuck at some point because God appears to have abandoned them. He is not coming through.

Speaking about her life with a mixture of disappointment and cynicism, a young woman recently said, “God is rather silent right now.” Yes, it’s been awful. I don’t discount that for a moment. She is unloved; she is unemployed; she is under a lot. But her attitude strikes me as deeply naive, on the level of someone caught in a cross fire who asks, rather shocked and with a sense of betrayal, “God, why won’t you make them stop firing at me?”

I’m sorry, but that’s not where we are right now. It’s not where we are in the Story. That day is coming, later, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb and we’ll beat the swords into plowshares.

For now, it’s bloody battle. It sure explains a whole heckuva lot.

(Waking the Dead by John Eldredge, p. 17)