“16. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
17. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
18. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

As I am now in my 70’s, physical wasting away is very apparent. Both my cousin and older brother, only a few years older than me, have home care packages, and I worry about both of them surviving long enough for me to see them again.

We have all reached the age of regret, when opportunities in this life will not come again, and the term “if only” can weigh heavy upon us.
But the burden of our choices that were not the very best that God intended for us, is lifted when we put our faith in Jesus and the forgiveness He won for us on the cross, and follow the path He has prepared for us.

And as we follow Jesus in this life, it is not only into his earthly death, but also his resurrection. For nothing we face in this life is new to Jesus, He has already walked the path before us, and prepared the way for us into eternal life with Him.

All that we see in this earthly life is subject to decay and death, even the heritage of western democratic civilisation as the Age of Reason seems to have become the Age of Unreason, and the curse of sin infects everything we see. But praise God for the gift of His Holy Spirit, who shows us what is unseen and is growing by the grace of God within us, which we live out in our daily lives with all those whom God sends to us.