Temporary Troubles Can't Crush Fearless, Eternal Hope
Daily Scripture
2 Corinthians 4:6-10, 16-18
6 God said that light should shine out of the darkness. He is the same one who shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in clay pots so that the awesome power belongs to God and doesn’t come from us. 8 We are experiencing all kinds of trouble, but we aren’t crushed. We are confused, but we aren’t depressed. 9 We are harassed, but we aren’t abandoned. We are knocked down, but we aren’t knocked out.
10 We always carry Jesus’ death around in our bodies so that Jesus’ life can also be seen in our bodies.
16 So we aren’t depressed. But even if our bodies are breaking down on the outside, the person that we are on the inside is being renewed every day. 17 Our temporary minor problems are producing an eternal stockpile of glory for us that is beyond all comparison. 18 We don’t focus on the things that can be seen but on the things that can’t be seen. The things that can be seen don’t last, but the things that can’t be seen are eternal.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The apostle Paul wrote 2 Corinthians after a painful time when rival teachers had turned many Christians in Corinth against him. Later in the letter, he cataloged the many challenges he’d faced in carrying out God’s mission (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). Yet Paul didn’t let any of that destroy him. He saw his struggles as connected to Jesus’ death (verse 10), which seemed the worst defeat of all, yet became victory through resurrection.
- When did you last feel confused, harassed, or knocked down? What resources helped you avoid being crushed, depressed, or knocked out? Have you ever seen—in yourself or someone you know—the truth of Paul’s words: “Even if our bodies are breaking down on the outside, the person that we are on the inside is being renewed every day”?
- We too often feel shame about illness or aging, seeing them as weakness or failure. But Paul faced those realities fearlessly. Scholar William Barclay wrote: “It is a notable fact that in all the gospel story Jesus never foretold his death without foretelling his Resurrection…. The things that are seen, the things of this world, have their day and cease to be; the things that are unseen, the things of heaven, last forever.” * How can God’s promise of eternity help you live beyond fear about this earthly life’s end?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, on the days when life feels dark and nothing seems to go right, help me not to be crushed or destroyed. Remind me always that, as Pastor Hamilton often reminds us, “the worst thing is never the last thing.” Because of your resurrection, I have eternal hope. Amen.
GPS Insights
Janelle Gregory
Janelle Gregory, who serves as Resurrection's Human Resources Lead Director, wrote today's Insights. Janelle finds that her heart is constantly wrestling with the truth that she needs a Savior, and the times when she's at her very best are when she's just too tired to put up a fight.
Last year, I downloaded a puzzle game on my phone. At first, it felt harmless. It was fun and engaging. I told myself it was good for my brain. It was a mental workout, a “smarter” way to unwind.
The creators of the app were clever. After a while, they introduced leaderboards. Suddenly, you could see how you ranked compared to everyone else in the world who played the game. I didn’t care at first. I was just there to solve puzzles. But then I noticed another player’s username: LittleBunny785. Next to their name was a little bag of gold. A bag of gold!! How did they get that? Why didn’t I have one? And most importantly, what did I need to do to get one?
That’s when the shift happened. What started as a casual game quietly became a mission. I played more and more. I paid attention to streaks and scores. I started thinking about the leaderboard even when I wasn’t playing. I would go to sleep playing this game in my head.
And guess what? I earned my bag of gold!!! I was proud, embarrassingly so. There I was, listed alongside LittleBunny785 and the other elite puzzle-solvers of the world. Proof, right there on my phone, that I had achieved something. This felt absolutely amazing for an entire day… until it didn’t. Because here’s the truth: none of it mattered.
The gold bag didn’t change my life. The leaderboard didn’t make me wiser, kinder, or more whole. It just temporarily satisfied something in me that always seems to want one more badge, one more rank, one more sign that I’m “doing well.”
That silly little game turned out to be a tiny mirror. Because we do this all the time, and often it is with much bigger stakes. We chase leaderboards that look more respectable:
wealth, power, beauty, productivity, popularity, health, even the trophy of being good. We want to know how we stack up. Are we ahead? Are we winning? Are we better than we were last year? Are we better than them? We collect invisible badges and gold stars, hoping they’ll finally quiet the anxious question underneath that asks the question if we are enough.
These “badges” feel important because they’re measurable, visible, and easy to compare. But they’re temporary. What actually lasts can’t be tracked on a leaderboard. It’s faithfulness when no one applauds. It’s character formed through struggle. It’s a sacrificial kind of love. It’s living out the faith that we’ve been taught. Those things don’t come with badges. There’s no gold bag next to your name. But we’re reminded that these are the things that make an eternal difference.
That puzzle game wasn’t wrong or evil. It was just… insignificant. And realizing how quickly I poured energy into winning something so temporary made me pause and ask a harder question: Where else am I chasing bags of gold that won’t matter in the end? And how can I spend more time focusing on what’s actually making an eternal difference?
© 2026 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Revised Edition). Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, p. 202.
