I like the way Eugene Peterson expresses 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. 

 
“So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever.”
 
Everlasting life can change your perspective and smuggle hope into all the here-and-now hurt and pain of life. 
 
The Creed puts us onto the home straight this week. On Sunday we'll think about the resurrection of the body and heaven in the setting of a baptismal service. 
 
A documentary on D-Day ran two interviews. The first was with a soldier who fought the battle on the ground: “I was convinced,” he said, “that there was no way we could win.” The other interview was with a pilot, who saw a much wider view of the battle: 
 
“I was convinced,” he said, “that there was no way we could lose.”
 
Paul chooses the pilot’s perspective on the fierce battles we wage in this present time. When he looks at his hardships with a little heaven in his eyes, they are transformed from dead end cul-de-sacs to highways to glory. They are not meant for our destruction but for our sanctification. It was Ron Dunn said, "The Lord is a refiner, not an arsonist." The fires of our trials refine us and ready us for the day when our trials and sufferings are no more. They show us that in our weakness Christ is strong, and in our need God’s grace is enough (2 Corinthians 12:9). I’m learning to look at my trials with a little heaven in my eye. 
 
Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy that lay before him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” The resurrection of the body and life everlasting sustains us in our present struggles.
 
This is the perspective God provides which sustained Jesus and enables you and I to see the beginning and the end of everything.
 
Be blessed 
 
Brian