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7To keep me from becoming
conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given
me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three
times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he
said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect
in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my
weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is
why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,
in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
We’ve all faced situations in which we in which we’ve called out to God for help and nothing seemed to happen. That was exactly Paul’s experience here. While we don’t know what Paul’s “thorn” was, we do know it was a source of great pain. From his testimony we know that he prayed sincerely to have this hardship removed, but God chose not to do so. Instead, God gave Paul what he most needed - an extra measure of his grace to cope with his pain. Through this trial, Paul realized that God’s power is actually perfected during our times of greatest need. If God doesn’t choose to take away our suffering, he’ll give us the strength we need to get through it. If you’re presently suffering from some kind of “thorn in your flesh”, you’re probably looking for a way to get rid of it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if God doesn’t choose to remove the cause of your suffering, don’t despair. Instead, ask God to help you learn, as Paul did, to experience his power during your difficulty.
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