"Worth It All"

 “Seeing that right there…that’s worth it all.”  So said a woman who was standing beside me on the deck of a cruise ship in Alaskan waters last summer.  We were about a mile from Margerie Glacier in Glacier Bay National Park.  This glacier was actively calving…house-size and up to ten-story building size chunks of ice were calving off of a three-hundred-foot high wall of ice into the Arctic Ocean, producing a delayed thunder-clap-like sound about as loudly as I’ve ever heard as the ice chunks fell into the sea.

I’m not exactly sure what the woman was talking about when she said “that’s worth it all.”  We both were so engrossed in what we were witnessing that we didn’t converse with each other at all.  But I suspect she may have been speaking of the expense of the cruise, the difficulty she may have had in travel, or some other kind of problem that made that moment…that moment when we were privileged to witness one of the great spectacles of nature in a remote part of the earth…worth whatever difficulty she may have had to overcome.

We, too, had some things happen in the whole trip process that, while they may not have been extreme difficulties, they could have easily become a roadblock of sorts.  We had multiple conversations with our travel agent to be sure we were both on the same page.  We had to have our passports renewed, as part of our trip was in Canada.  We went through customs, had to wear masks, be vaccinated against COVID and show proof of the same.  Our bus didn’t show up at the airport to take us to our hotel, so we had to make alternate arrangements.  At times, we felt like we were sort of herded like cattle.  We went in June, so the air was rather crisp at times.  Our room on the ship was really small for the four of us.  A red-eye flight back to civilization over several time zones.  Beyond tired.

Yet those were really small inconveniences compared with the magnificence of what we experienced in the Arctic Ocean a mile or so from a huge wall of ice.  Yes, seeing that right there…that indeed was worth it all.

Paul, the apostle of Jesus, had something to say about whether or not the difficulties we encounter in life were worth it.  This is a man, you recall, who endured arrests, dungeons, beatings, shipwreck, and other “inconveniences” for the privilege of telling others about the risen Lord and a new covenant God was giving His people.  Yet he insisted on calling these things he experienced…these beatings, arrests, and other troubles “light and momentary troubles” compared with what he knew he would experience in eternity with his Lord.  Here’s what he said about that.

 

 We do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  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.”

 

Life seldom goes the way we would like.  Most of us haven’t had the kind of troubles that Paul had in his ministry.  Yet we do experience things that are part of life and living which make it more difficult, it seems, to be the kind of people God would have us be.  Sometimes we get so discouraged that we consider just giving in and giving up.  We determine that the end we envision isn’t worth all the trouble we are experiencing in order to get there.

I know that we can’t physically see the reality that God says he has in store for us if we remain faithful.  It can be incredibly difficult to be in the midst of trial and trouble, yet know, believe, and anticipate that ahead lies something that will make all of the difficulties in this life worthwhile.  I know that because I am just like you…I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it all…if something I cannot yet see, feel or comprehend in any physical way makes the trials and problems of life worth it.  The temptation to just give up and give in is real.

And to add insult to injury, Christians are often accused of believing in a fairy tale…a pie-in-the-sky, unbelievable, and preposterous tale of a god who became human, lived a human life, was killed by the Romans, and that that death somehow makes it possible for anyone who believes that story to have a life after death that is glorious beyond description.

I get it.  The logic in me says to be wary.  Any other story that seems too good to be true, we are told, usually is.

“Seeing that right there…that’s worth it all.”  I often go back to that statement by the woman who was standing next to me on the ship as we watched the calving of the glacier.  I may not physically see God or the future time, but with a kind of sight that bypasses the eyes in my head, I see the truth of what I am told.  I see the God of the universe.  And I too am convinced that these troubles are really “light and momentary,” compared with what I comprehend is ahead.  And I hope and trust that you also will understand that yes, it indeed is “worth it all.”

 

Blessings.