The Weight of Glory

May 30 2025 - Eric Buresh

Our journey to see with eternal perspective has come to the cross-roads called suffering.   

And we do not lose heart. What a strange and wondrous declaration from the lips of a man acquainted with prisons, shipwrecks, beatings, betrayals, and sleepless nights. Paul’s life was mired in suffering—and yet he calls it “light.” He bore permanent scars, and yet he calls it “momentary.” Is this exaggeration? Is this blindness to pain? No—it is perspective. 

There are two scales before us: one holding all the afflictions of this life, the other bearing the eternal glory promised to the children of God. Place every tear, every trial, every agony and affliction on one side—and then, with trembling hands, lay on the other the glory of Christ revealed in us, the reward of the righteous, the joy of unity with God. The balance tips in an instant. Our heaviest burdens are light. Our longest nights are momentary. 

Our afflictions are not wasted. They are not random. They are “working for us” a weight of glory. The fires that scorch us refine us. The winds that buffet us conform us to Christ. The sorrow that bows our head is sowing seeds for joy unspeakable. How often we wish the suffering would end—yet the Lord tells us that even this, even now, is producing something we will never regret in eternity. 

And note the phrase: “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Words strain to bear it. It is not merely glory. It is weighty glory. It is eternal, not passing. It is exceeding, not moderate. It is glory stacked upon glory, multiplied by mercy, crowned with joy. And it is yours. It is yours in Christ. 

So, we fix our eyes—not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. We live not by the flickering light of circumstance, but by the blazing torch of eternal promise. We walk by faith, not by sight. For what is seen is temporary. These bodies, these trials, these griefs—they are fading like the grass. But what is unseen—the soul conformed to Christ, the reward that awaits, the presence of God forever—is everlasting. 

Let us encourage one another with these truths. When a brother grows weary, remind him of the weight of glory. When a sister trembles in trial, point her to the eternal joy beyond the veil of time. Let our church be a fellowship of hope, a people whose eyes are lifted above the fading things of earth to the everlasting promises of our Father.