Have you ever wondered why God hasn’t answered your prayer in the way you hoped He would?
“Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no-one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 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.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 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 12:6-10
It matters not what the thorn was for Paul. The thorn was an unanswered prayer that Paul thought needed fixing but it wasn’t fixed. Why does this happen to us?
- To protect us from pride.
- An opportunity to experience more grace.
- We realise His ongoing and sustaining presence within the circumstance is enough.
- Within the thorn lies the venue where the power of God is seen in its fullest form.
- It gives the opportunity for authentic community as we become real about our experience.
- We begin to live our lives in faith as we carry unanswered questions.
- We become weak enough to carry the presence of God.
- Grants a testimony which is not free of problems but shouts of the power of God being present despite the problems.
So today perhaps instead of hiding your thorn or being embarrassed by it we consider how God may want to display His power through it. Instead of pleading for the thorn’s removal we pray for the grace of God that sustains us within the thorn.
It is then when we are at our weakest that we can declare that we are strong.
Missions Paul 