Have you been over to Three Bad Fingers? Seven, the author, posts a devotional on Second Corinthians 1 - Despairing Even of Life. I urge you to go read it, because Seven has often given me a dose of encouragement in his meditations on Scripture.
(more under the fold....)
Consider Paul’s life. After he turned to Jesus in faith, what was the sum of his experience? He was continually beaten, imprisoned, subject to mob violence, rejected, and suffered physical ailments. This did not occur for a season, but continued to his death. Is it any wonder he “despaired even of life”? In this affliction, what did Paul accomplish? He was perhaps the greatest evangelist in history. Paul transformed Christianity, by taking salvation to the Gentiles. This broadening of the faith enabled change beyond Jerusalem, into the entire world. So, was his life of reduced value because of his sufferings? Had his life lost purpose when he could not see beyond his torment? When death was seen as desirable, did this supplant God’s unrevealed plans for Paul’s life?
So I need to remember that when I despair, there is always hope and a bright future. I need to remember Paul's words in Romans 8:18, 28-39
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us...
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
"For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the name of God, amen. And I thank my Lord and Savior for the eternal hope that He gives me out of the riches of His grace and mercy.
