We Christians are all prone to separating our theology from our personal experience. We make a compartment for God and doctrine and another compartment for relationships and life. And the more we do it, the more we tend to focus only on ourselves and our earthly life (with its problems) at the cost of focussing on Jesus and the life to come. Such an imbalanced focus generally adds to our problems rather than solving them - which is where 2 Corinthians comes in. In this letter, Paul encourages us to view all things in the light of Christ, modelling the connection between personal experience and rich theology, no matter how painful and problematic those experiences might be. His tumultuous relationship with the Corinthian church only increases his love and care for them, so that they might truly know the God he represents.