II Corinthians 12:7-10 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." 10Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
How can I give to the church when I have nursing home expenses? How can I do for others when my arthritis won’t let me get out of bed in the morning? How can I know the joy of being a Christian when I am plagued with bouts of depression? What can I say about being a Christian parent when my children are now grown and do not attend church? How many of us have run into something that seems to limit us and keep us from the life we want and desire? Apparently, Paul had that problem. He called it his thorn in the flesh.
Do you have a thorn in the flesh? Or, maybe several? A health problem? Anxiety? Worry? A person you cannot change and cannot separate yourself from? Your looks?
The thorn kept Paul humble and helped him remember his weakness and his need for God. Still, he called this humbling thorn a messenger from Satan. Sometimes a message from the thorn made Paul resentful of his weakness, and maybe rebellious of his circumstances. Paul knows the thorn has a purpose, but he is not rejoicing in the humility given him. There is no easy acceptance of the thorn on Paul’s part. He wants it out, removed from his life, and he does everything possible he knows how to do to be delivered from this thorn. He prayed three times, just as Jesus prayed three times that God would remove from Him the cup of suffering on the Cross.
Struggling to get rid of the thorn is normal. Praying to have it removed is good. Paul struggled against the thorn and prayed for the removal of the thorn until something happened. And what happened was a moment of grace. My grace is sufficient for you. How do we possibly describe this moment? Grace does not cure all our diseases, transform our children to what we had hoped they would be, send us soaring into the skies with spiritual ecstasy and joy. Grace is that experience of God that gives us the power to look earthly reality full in the face with all of its outrageous unfairness and somehow know that it is all right.
Grace does not remove the thorn, but it sheds new light on the thorn, and the light comes from God. We do not know what Paul’s thorn was. I do not know what your thorn is. We do know that for Jesus the thorn in His flesh felt like a nail, looked like ridicule and rejection and failure, and yet the thorn did not defeat God’s plan and purpose for Jesus’ life. What is your thorn? What is the message that your thorn gives you? My grace is sufficient for you.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope
copyright Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell Broyles
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