2 Corinthians 4:17 (CSB)
For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.
When I was 11 years old, my dad was having back problems and ultimately ended up having surgery. During his recovery, it was discovered that he had Multiple Sclerosis. My dad was 47 at the time, and three years later, my 18-year-old brother was killed in a car accident. We noticed that my dad's Multiple Sclerosis made him incapable of recovering from any setbacks, including illness or traumatic experiences. So from then on, anytime he got sick, that would serve as a major marker of decline.
As I watched my dad's health quickly degenerate, I couldn't see God's hand at work because all I could see was pain and suffering. But all these years later, as I look back, I can see how, through all that pain and confusion, God was weaving His Kingdom purpose through it all.
One of the lessons that my father's struggle continues to teach me today is that we cannot let the suffering of this life define who we are. When dad got to the point where he couldn’t walk and we would go out in public, I could see people were looking at him differently, as if they were wondering, “What’s wrong with him?” Where other people saw a handicapped man, I saw my dad. The world identified my father by his pain, but I identified him by my relationship with him.
The world, the flesh, and the devil will always try to identify you with your past pain. They want you to stay stuck in your despair and pain as they dump a load of condemnation on your heart and mind. We easily identify with pain because we live in a broken, sinful world. Pain and suffering are all around us in this world, and their messages are constantly trying to pull you in and get you to identify yourself as tarnished, second-rate, unworthy, an outcast, rejected, and so on.
This is why you must experience your personal exodus out of the kingdom of this world and into the Kingdom of God. In the Kingdom of God, you're not defined by your past trauma or how the world sees you, but by who you are in Christ. When you are positioned in Christ, God the Father loves you with the same love He has for His Son. Just as it says in Ephesians 2:4–6 (CSB), “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus.” Look at that last phrase, “in Christ Jesus.” That is the key to your freedom from the world’s lies about who you are.
So, take heart and hold on to the truth of your true identity in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 (CSB), we read, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!” Don't let the world, the flesh, and the devil keep you bound by your past pain. For in Christ Jesus, you have been renewed, you are loved, and you have Kingdom purpose as a child of God.
As you embrace your Kingdom purpose, know that even in the most painful seasons of your life, God is weaving your affliction into something eternally beautiful and purposeful. When the condemning voices of the world, the flesh, and the devil try to lie to you about your identity, remember your position in Christ and that you are now a new creation in Christ Jesus. Always remember that your identity rests not in your pain but within the heart of a loving, merciful, and ever-faithful God.