2 Corinthians 4:7-18 offers a portrait of spiritual buoyancy. Paul, in other places, invites us to follow him as he follows Christ (1 Cor 11:1). His spiritual practices caused him to float above the difficulties that he faced over and over again in his life and ministry. One of the greatest things he learned was complete dependency on Christ. It was the stuff he was made of. The evidence of this are his continual references to prayer. Periodic petitionary prayer protects our hope, and hope floats. We can float above it all when we lean back and relax in the love of God. Our faith is in the one who said he would never leave or forsake us. We are in him and he is in us. Our circumstances are temporary, but what is holding us up and keeping us from drowning in the waters of this present world is eternal. It reminds me of the poem, “The Cork and the Whale.”
The Cork and the Whale
A little brown cork
Fell in the path of a whale
Who lashed it down
With his angry tail.
But, in spite of the blows,
It quickly arose,
And floated serenely
Before his nose.
Said the cork to the whale,
"You may flap and sputter and frown,
But you never, never can keep me down:
For I'm made of the stuff
That is buoyant enough
To float instead of to drown."
Author Unknown