Hope Not…
“Therefore we do not lose heart,
but though our outer man is decaying,
yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16
We must not place our hope in our health. Sure it’s easier to navigate life when our bodies are at their best, but we must hope and persevere even when our bodies seem to be against us. I am 50 years old and held together with titanium rods, screws, and sacral claws. I hurt. All the time. I pursue medications, doctor’s advice, physical therapy, and surgeries in order to function at my best, but my hope is the Lord.
God heals. God is sovereign. Sometimes God chooses not to heal our physical infirmities. He healed me when I was pregnant with my first born and He healed one of my sons who broke his back at age 5. He has chosen not to heal my spine. He has told me very clearly, “No”. I still go to chiropractors and doctors seeking relief, but my hope is not in a miracle cure. My hope is that in heaven for all eternity, I will never hurt again!
In the meantime, my hope, and thus my energy, is expended believing that the “inner man being renewed day by day.” The next verse in 2 Corinthians 6 says, “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, 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.” My pain at the moment does not often seem like momentary light affliction! It seems like a boulder that I can’t move and it hurts! But when my mind is renewed with the hope of eternal healing and health, God gives me strength to get through each moment of each day.
If my hope was in a medical cure, I would live in despair and desperation. I choose to live in praise and joy in the midst, looking to the God of eternal healing. He is Lord over my body. If He wanted to, He could cure me today. Since He has not, I must trust that that He has an eternal purpose in the pain of each day, and I must hope in Him to do His will in me and my life.
