Paul, the great Christian apostle, was a man who knew what he was talking about. He had seen a great light and heard Christ speaking to him. He was so on fire with the truth that had been revealed to him that he felt impelled to spread the good news of Christianity as far and wide as he could. And so he journeyed through what are now the countries of Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Turkey, and Greece, preaching and healing.
In doing this, Paul came face to face with hunger, thirst, and cold. He was beaten and imprisoned. He was stoned and left for dead. He was shipwrecked. And yet he wrote, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." II Cor. 4:17. "Our light affliction"? Apparently Paul saw the difficulties of human life from a different perspective than most of us! It seems evident that his focus was not on the suffering he was encountering but on the glory of the spiritual goal he was pursuing.
At a time when I was struggling through a frightening change in my life, a Christian Science practitioner pointed out to me Paul's statement that "our...affliction...worketh for us" (adding her own emphasis). "This problem is not working against you," she said, "it's working for you." By this she meant that this difficult time in my life would be seen in retrospect as a time of great spiritual growth. Whatever the length of the struggle, it would eventually be felt as relatively brief and working for my ultimate spiritual benefit. (How right she turned out to be!)
