We don't use our desire for the Lord's reward as a motivation...to our detriment. Paul is always looking to his heavenly reward. He is always pointing our gaze there: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worthy comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." (Rom. 8:18) Paul envisions the scales of justice. On one side he puts "all of the sufferings" we experience in this life. On the other side, "the glory that will be revealed in us." And when weighed on Justice's scale - our sufferings cannot be compared. The weight of the Glory to be revealed completely outweighs our sufferings.
But we do not know this! We don't know about this glory. We don't have a vision of heaven, or of the promises that await us, and so we "suffer" and having nothing to put on the other side of the scale, we think that it is unfair, not right. Our confidence that God is good and can be trusted is undermined. We think we need to satisfy ourselves, here and now.
Paul says that if this life is all there is, then we are to be the most pitied.
We live our lives, essentially, thinking only about this life, embarrassed by any true desire for the glory that will be revealed. What motivated Abraham and Moses and the great cloud of Old Testament witnesses, what motivated Jesus, what Paul and Peter and the writer of Hebrews declare, what theologians up until the 1800s held out as of central importance, has been lost on us. As a result, we are like ignorant children fooling around in mud puddles and think it is only right that we do so, think it would be wrong, in fact, to even let ourselves desire a "holiday at the sea." We are far too easily pleased!
Reflection #7 on C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory
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