Wasting and renewed
Two selves, two directions
Paul describes a strange double movement happening at once in the suffering believer: though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. Two things are true simultaneously and pulling in opposite directions — one diminishing, one growing. The outer person, the body and circumstances, may be visibly declining; meanwhile, invisibly, the inner person is being made new.
This reframes the losses of the valley. From the outside, suffering looks like nothing but subtraction — strength failing, health declining, circumstances eroding, the visible self diminishing day by day. And that decline is real; Paul does not deny it. But he insists it is only half the story. Beneath and behind the visible wasting, an invisible renewal is underway, the inner self being strengthened and made new precisely as the outer self weakens.
The key is where we fix our eyes. We look at what is seen, Paul says, and despair, because everything seen is wasting; but the unseen things are eternal, and they are growing. The very season that is depleting your outer life may be the season your inner life is being most deeply renewed. The valley takes much from the outer self, but it can give even more to the inner. Which of the two are you watching — the self that is wasting, or the self that is being renewed?
“Though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.”
— Paul, to the Corinthians — 2 Corinthians 4:16 (WEB)
Fix your eyes on the inner self being renewed, not only the outer self that is wasting — trusting that the valley's losses are accompanied by an invisible renewal.
“We don't look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Suffering trains the eye to count only what it can see going — the failing body, the eroding circumstances — and that arithmetic of loss, left to run alone, ends in despair. The interior work is to trust Paul's double movement, an inner self being renewed at the very hour the outer wastes, and to deliberately turn the gaze from the seen and passing to the unseen and eternal that is quietly growing.
This week, when you are tempted to despair over visible losses, deliberately look at the unseen: ask how your inner self might be being renewed even as the outer wastes, and fix your attention on what is eternal and growing rather than only on what is passing.
Fix the eyes only on the wasting outer self and the visible loss becomes the whole account, and despair is the honest sum. But the same season depleting the body is renewing the inner self day by day — and a gaze trained on the unseen and eternal watches the very thing meant to deplete it make it new.
From inside a season of suffering, everything looks like loss — strength, health, circumstances, the visible self all diminishing, day after day. If that decline were the whole story, despair would be the only honest response. Paul insists it is only half. While the outer self wastes away, an inner renewal is happening at the very same time, invisible but real, the inner person being made new precisely as the outer one weakens.
Everything depends on which self we are watching. Fix your eyes only on the seen — the wasting body, the eroding circumstances — and you will despair, because all that is seen is passing away. Fix them on the unseen, which is eternal and growing, and the same hard season takes on a different meaning. The valley that depletes your outer life may be renewing your inner life more deeply than any comfortable season could. Are your eyes on what is wasting, or on what is being renewed?
- Am I watching only the self that is wasting?
- Could an inner renewal be happening even as my outer life declines?
- Where do I need to fix my eyes on the unseen and eternal?
Lord, in suffering I see only loss — the outer self wasting day by day — and despair. Teach me that you are renewing my inner self at the very same time. Turn my eyes from the seen and passing to the unseen and eternal, and make me new even as the rest fails. Amen.