Yesterday I was reading the passage on Paul's thorn in the flesh. Here's what Paul wrote:
2 Corinthians 12:7 Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! 8 Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 9 And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
God took this passage and spoke to my heart in a very clear and challenging way. Let me share with you three observations I made.
Whatever Paul's "thorn" was, he didn't want it and asked numerous times for God to remove it. Paul calls it a messenger from Satan to torment him so this thorn must not have been an easy thing to deal with. He described it as torment. My first observation was that this was no little thing to Paul, he hated it and wanted it to change.
But God tells him definitively that He is not going to remove it. Some how, in some way, God's glory was made more evident in Paul's life through Paul's weakness. My guess is that when people saw Paul's weakness, his thorn, and they saw his devotion and love for Jesus, they would know that what made him like he was was the power of God at work in his life. But what was clear was that no matter how much Paul wanted that thorn gone, no matter how much he asked, God wasn't going to remove it. That was my second observation.
My third observation, something I think I'd glossed over and missed in the past, was Paul had accepted that answer and was content to live with his less that ideal situation if at the end of the day God would be more greatly exalted. I imagine that he still would very much like to have had that "thorn" removed. It was undoubtedly an irritant since most thorns are; it clearly hurt him. But Paul had quit fighting against it and had accepted the answer of God and now was choosing to live in contentment and allow God to shine through that weakness.
Here's where it gets personal. I've had a thorn in my flesh too and I've asked God repeatedly to remove it, to change it, but he has always said no. But what was clear to me yesterday was, that unlike Paul, I've never accepted that. I still fight against it on the inside. I chaff at it and it often consumes my thinking. I have been unwilling to accept what Jesus has been saying to me for years-- "Jimmy, I'm not changing it for in this weakness my grace is made perfect in you. Jimmy, you shine brighter for me in this weakness than you would if I removed it. I'm not going to take away your thorn." I've refused to accept that, though almost three decades have gone by.
But yesterday God tenderly helped me see Paul's contentment and his willingness to embrace the thorn and stop fighting against it. Today I'm asking God to do that in me. I can't say that accepting this thorn is going to be easy, or a quick turn around, but I sense God's work in me to that end.
