Scripture Devotion
Light affliction, weighed against an eternal weight of glory.
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Reflection
The passage runs on a series of scales, weighing one thing against another. The outward man perishes; the inward is renewed. The affliction is light and but for a moment; the glory is a far more exceeding and eternal weight. Paul isn't denying the affliction — he's weighing it, and finding it light only by comparison to something vast on the other side of the scale. And the last turn is where the seeing happens: we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. The whole capacity to call an affliction "light" depends on where the eyes are fixed — on the temporal, which magnifies trouble, or the eternal, which right-sizes it. Sunday is the day to move the gaze deliberately from the seen to the unseen, and let the weights settle into their true proportion.