Thursday, September 10, 2021 Submitted by Donnie O'Fallon
… a thorn was given me in the flesh… a messenger of Satan to harass me… Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me, But He said to me, my Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness… ( 2 Corinthians 12:7-9a),ESV.
We are people of weakness! Yet, our point of weakness can become God’s vantage ground for our greatest strength. The weakness of my life becomes the display case, the trophy case, in which God’s Strength, demonstrates itself. The thorns of my life drive me to the Throne of God.
The text drives us to accept the reality of our weakness, (I Corinthians 12:7-9). Paul had a thorn in the flesh, “a weakness”, more literally, “a thorn for the flesh” - a spike, a stake, a nail. What’s your weakness, your disability, your incapacity, something that haunts you? Large or small we cannot say but we can identify with what Paul meant when he said, “there is a weakness in my life that continually and conspicuously punctures me”. For Paul, some feel it was a physical malady, others have said, it was a something-inside him in his hidden self. Maybe something of his character? We really do not know!
For me, the last two years, it’s been my left leg. I go to bed with pain, I wake up during the might with pain, I get up with pain, I spend the day with pain every day. We can look at this passage and come to identify with Paul, there is something we struggle with. It is not so much the place nor pain of the thorn. Where it is not what it is, is not important. What is important, is that we understand God’s purpose in verse (7), Paul states, “it was given to me”, which is in the passive voice. That means, the subject Paul, was being acted upon and God was doing the acting. He was permitting a “messenger from Satan” to sick and jab. God purpose in these things, is our long-term Holiness not our short-term happiness.
Ask yourself, “why is it, I have an opponent I can’t shake”? “Why is it I have indignation that will knock me down, and I cry out to God, “take it away”? “Why is it, in my relationships, that I keep getting knocked down, the pain keeps beating me up”? In verse (7) Paul says, “ lest I should be exalted among measure”. Paraphrased, God’s given me a thorn to deal with the lack of humility in my own life. When the things of life puncture us and impales us, we are driven to the Throne Room of God and we ask Him to “send them away”. Don’t be surprised if He says, “My Grace is sufficient for you”. There are some things in life, that may not go away. He says, “my Grace outweighs the thorns”!
