“God uses chronic pain and weakness, along with other afflictions, as his chisel for sculpting our lives. Felt weakness deepens dependence on Christ for strength each day. The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually, even while our bodies waste away. To live with your ‘thorn’ uncomplainingly—that is, sweet, patient, and free in heart to love and help others, even though every day you feel weak—is true sanctification. It is true healing for the spirit. It is a supreme victory of grace.” – J. I. Packer
Just as the thorns on a stem guard the mishandling of a delicate rose, the thorns we experience in the garden of life shield us from becoming prideful and self-sufficient. The apostle Paul was afflicted with such a thorn, and in 2 Corinthians 12 he says, “Three times I pleaded with 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” (Vv. 8-9).
Paul was a man of incredible influence in the early Christian world, the greatest missionary in history. How easy it would be then, even for a godly man such as Paul, to become enamored with all that he’d accomplished; with all of the respect and admiration that early Christians had for him. After all, wasn’t it Paul whom Christ had personally chosen to share the Gospel to the rest of the world?!
I often ponder what the thorn was in Paul’s flesh. Was it chronic illness? Was it the influence of false teachings that had seeped into some of the churches he started after he’d become imprisoned? Might it have been nightmares reminding him of his past life as a persecutor of those he now loved so much? Who knows. Paul doesn’t say.
But whatever it was, God obviously saw Paul’s thorn as an asset that he should keep, to which Paul himself recognized and attested. “That 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” (2 Corinthians 12:10).
How often it is that we complain about our thorns. And when God decides to not remove them, don’t we take it upon ourselves to do the job? And then after realizing that they’re permanently embedded, they become infected and we seek immediate relief through the comforts of this world.
Let us embrace our thorns! It is through these thorns in life that we find our Savior; a crown of them on his head, nailed to a wooden cross, our sin and shame removed forever!
May we embrace our thorns today, remembering that they bring us closer to Christ. They’re an important part of our sanctification, our victory of grace. Amen.
Former Blackout Artist 