Recently, I heard someone say, "...that trials could be compared to gripping
a steering wheel during a bad rain storm.  When the storm, is over we can
finally relax and loosen our grip".

This got me to thinking about my commute to work.  Approximately seven years
ago, I commuted to a job as a contractor for a few months. It was a long,
hard, stressful drive and, literally, when I got to work, I would peel my
fingers off the steering wheel.  Seven years later, I am basically making
that same commute, actually getting off at the same exit, and in the same
basic location where I worked before. But, interestingly, even though the
traffic is worse, the drive is a little longer, I find I don't grip the
steering wheel as hard or as often. Why is that?  The answer is that over the
course of seven years of driving in heavy traffic, I have adjusted to it,
I've accepted it as "life" in Atlanta.

In a similar way, as I have grown in the Lord and grown through my trials, I
have learned to live in such a way that I am not always gripping the steering
wheel.  

You could say that, although I am going through some trials similar to those
seven years ago, I am not gripping the steering wheel as hard or as often.
And I do not grip the steering wheel in all the same situations as I did
before.

The truth is that, as we grow in the Lord, our trials will not affect us in
the ways they once did.  Let's face it, life is full of trials.  So even when
you get over a big trial, don't be surprised if another one is on its way. It
is all part of the growing process in our relationship with our LORD (I Peter
1:7).

In II Corinthians 4:17, Paul amazingly calls the trials in his life "light
affliction".  Paul went through many things - many, many presecutions like
most of us will never know, and he called these "light affliction" in
comparison to eternal rewards that awaited him in heaven.  He then says in II
Corinthians 4:18 - "While we look not at the things which are seen [light
afflictions and trials], but at the things which are not seen: for the things
which are seen [light afflictions and trials] are temporal; but the things
which are not seen are eternal."  In other words, these are temporal,
short-lived afflictions and trials (the most they could last is 70, 80, 90
years), and when we look at those things that are not seen (the heavenly, the
eternal), this life is so short in comparison to ETERNITY.  This is the
perspective that we must have!

If you are ever going to live where your afflictions are considered light,
you must get an eye for the eternal.  May this bring you encouragement and
also help you to get your eyes off  "the temporal" and onto "the eternal".  

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