I’m going to write today about some imagery we can use in our meditation time to remind us that any suffering we experience on earth is temporary. Yesterday I was writing about the imagery of carrying your cross and following Jesus. It is comforting to remember that we only carry our cross through this life – temporarily – and then we will be at perfect peace and rest in heaven forever.

1 Corinthians 4:17-18 says, “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 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.” The imagery we can use with this verse is that of a scale or balance.

On one side of the scale, envision the troubles you have experienced in this life. You don’t have to minimize your sufferings at all. Think of them as painful as they are…with as much pain as you feel about them. This is important because if you minimize or dismiss your pain, it can prevent you from releasing it and might even make you hold onto it. It is difficult to release a pain that you feel has not been understood or acknowledged yet. So go ahead and envision your pain in the scale without minimizing anything….or enlarging it either…just envision it exactly as it is. And then remember that no matter how great your pain is that you have experienced in this life, you can know for certain that when you look over on the other side of the scale, the blessings we receive in Christ will far outweigh any of our sufferings. While you are looking at the side of the scale that represents the future glory in heaven, spend time thinking about what it will be like to be in heaven…remembering also that one day when you are actually there in heaven, you will no longer feel any pain related to the sufferings you are enduring now. One of my hymns that I haven’t posted on here yet ends with the words, “Earthly sorrow turns into joy divine!” The pain you are feeling now will all be taken away when you get to heaven. Sorrow turns to joy. Psalm 126:5-6 says, “Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” There is a hymn I have posted on here called “Crown After Cross” by Frances Havergal – Learning to Live by Faith that talks about this and is helpful to listen to.

So as you are meditating, spend time noticing the pain that is on one side of the balance…then notice the future glory that awaits you in heaven…and then spend time wondering what it will feel like when you stand before God, have all your pain taken away, and get to enter into your great reward…a life in heaven with Jesus…forever!

Another image we can use to think about how our suffering on earth is temporary is a timeline. I drew this one in Paint 3D. I think it works well enough for you to envision the concept.

Each mark on the timeline represents 100 years. The first 100 years represents our life on earth, which at most will be 100 years. The rest of the marks on the timeline represent life in heaven. In heaven, we will be in eternity, which is a different state of being where we will not be bound by time. There are hymns that talk about going from time into eternity. Here on earth we have days and nights that pass in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years. There are not literal years in heaven…we will not be bound by time there…but we cannot yet comprehend what that will be like. So it helps to think of heaven as passing in endless years…hundreds of thousands of millions of endless years. The timeline that I drew shows about 1,000 years on it. The last verse of “Amazing Grace” says, “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, then when we first begun.” What this means is that because there is no end to our life in heaven, it will go on forever and ever. So even after we have been there 10,000 years, we will be nowhere close to reaching the end of our life in heaven because it never ends. We will never run out of time there. Our life there will go on forever and ever. Spending time meditating on that concept is very helpful. It helps us remember that we suffer in this life, which can last at most 100 years. And even if you endure very painful suffering for those 100 years, you have an eternity of endless years awaiting you where you will be living forever at perfect peace getting to see Jesus face to face. Remembering the eternal, never-ending glory that awaits us in heaven, can help us through our days on earth while we are still carrying our cross.