I bet the line to talk to Paul is going to pretty long in Heaven. There were several things he wrote that I know I could sure use a little clarification on. One of them has got to be the following:
“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I asked the Lord to take it away from me. But 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 weakness, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:7-10)
Wait..what did he just say? He does what in his weakness? Paul, brother, I am not sure I catch your drift. Oh, I get the part about the “thorn”. Oh do I ever get the part about the thorn, but you delight in that? I also get the part about the torment. Yet that makes you strong?
Here’s what this verse told me tonight. It’s time for a shift in my thinking. Instead of asking God to take it away (more then 3 times mind you), why not realize his “grace is sufficient”? Instead of letting it torment me almost hourly, why not gain strength in my weakness? Lastly, instead of letting it get the best of me, why not “delight in it”?
I don’t know what Paul was talking about for his “thorn”, but I know what this meant to me. Maybe it will mean something to you today too.
AARON CONRAD 