Recently, I visited a remarkable civil war relic, the USS Cairo at Vicksburg, Mississippi.. The Cairo was an ironclad gunboat that plied the Mississippi River during the Civil War. Confederates perfected the technique of electrically detonating under water mines. They first tried it out on the Cairo and they were successful. The craft sunk in 11 minutes. It lay beneath the surface of the waters for a hundred years, before a salvage crew brought it to the surface. Today, tourists can visit the gunboat, but it continues to deteriorate. Archivists attempt to preserve this historical relic, but the elements are gradually taking their toll on the exposed wood and metal. It's living proof that everything is temporary. In Romans 8:21, Paul said that everything is "in bondage to decay."

But there is something about us that is not decaying. It's in the process of transformation.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (verse 16)

You've probably heard the saying, "Tough times never last, tough people do." That's Paul's message to the Christian. As a Christian you've got the toughness that you need to endure. You can outlast the pressure, the pain, the perplexing circumstances, the persecution and the rejection.

Personal Application

In many ways the week I originally wrote these thoughts was not a good week. It started out fine. We were enjoying our vacation, but then I called my daughter. Even though I knew she was sick and knew she was thinking about surgery, I was hoping the pain would go away and she would avoid that. On a Tuesday night we called and realized that her circumstances were more serious that we thought and we made the decision to come home early and send Ann to Indianapolis. We arranged for travel and then on Friday, I took Ann to Little Rock to catch a plane. At the ticket stand, we found out they wouldn't allow the ticket for the price that has been written, so that was a little more stress. We finally got Ann on the plane to Indianapolis and then the news wasn't all good. The short-term prognosis was reasonable, but the long-term prognosis indicates the possibility of additional, even more serious surgery. So we were feeling stress and pain.

I don't know how you're going to feel about this, but I'm going to tell you what happened. Charles Cook (one of the elders of the church at Southern Hills) recently gave me a set of tapes to listen to and I hadn't had opportunity to hear them. I listened to them on the way home from Little Rock. The fellow on the tape was saying that one reason we feel so burdened in life is our failure to praise God for who he is and what he is doing. I began to realize that my focus was on our problems and our fears. So I shut the tape off and started praising God and thanking him for the blessings he has brought to my life. I can't tell you exactly when it happened. There was no spectacular moment with a lot of bells and whistles, but I noticed that I didn't feel burdened anymore. I wasn't denying the problems, but I was focused on God and I realized that God is bigger than any problem I have. It was a remarkable thing. The secret came in the realization that permanent blessings far outweigh temporary problems in the scope of things.

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