So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

– 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

One thing that always crosses my mind when I read the words of Paul is this: “he knew what he was talking about”.

I can talk all day long about affliction, about having spiritual eyes, about being renewed. But I really only know of these things in small ways. So many miles to go . . .

I was thinking today about how hard prayer is. And I’ll tell you why I think it’s hard: it’s because our physical eyes can’t see the spiritual world. There are people that I care about deeply and pray for every day but who I rarely see; I am “in the dark”, you might say, about what’s really going on with them. So I try not to worry, but to just pray, as God reminds me – I often fall into the doldrums of rote in this spiritual exercise. One of the people I’m thinking of has drifted far from God – it’s hard to believe it happened, but it did – and needs to come back. Desperately. Another has gone through a great struggle, and won, but is now on her own, and I pray she stays strong and finds peace when she’s lonely. Yet another has had a recent terrible heartbreak, and is having trouble hearing from God or feeling him. Two others – I often think of them in the same context – were once guys I saw many times a week. We used to worship together. I’m not sure where either one is spiritually now. Yet another seems OK, but I find myself troubled and multiple times daily lifting this person up to God, for over a year now, and I’m not even sure why.

Now my prayers are weak water compared to the hell-shaking, kingdom-shattering prayers of the great heroes of the faith; people such as Paul. There are many reasons why this is, not least of which are my sloth, my thorn-tangled faith, and my immature, distracted mind. But I also think that a large part of my trouble is my eyes.

“. . . as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

I haven’t yet learned to look to the unseen. I haven’t developed, much, the ability to see what is happening in the spiritual world which is by definition hidden to our physical eyes. There is a spiritual sensitivity that develops in a mature Christian; a second sight if you will, that begins to see the “real world”, meaning the world of the eternal, in front of rather than behind this flimsy veil that we call reality. Though this side of heaven no saint sees things completely clearly, I believe there are those stronger in the faith that can almost see the power of God unleashed when they pray.

I’m not there yet, not even close. So I say my weak prayers and I wonder and I worry in the “through the mirror, darkly” world through which I often stumble, because my eyes still need clearing. I need eyes of faith. Then I’ll see.

I pray that sight will come with time. It is a comfort to me, though, to think of these friends and loved ones, and lift them up to God, daily and weakly, alongside my prayers for my own family. I believe that’s what God wants me to do. And I thank him so much for the privilege of prayer. I pray he’ll make me better at it.