Thorns

 Greetings to  you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Second Corinthians 12:7-9 says, “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.  For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.  And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 

     We had a lot of gravel roads in my area of Indiana or what they would call, “tar and chip.”  Loose stones were forever on the edge of the road and when i had shoes on, one small stone would flip up and end up inside of my shoe.  They always felt like the rock of Gibraltar and I couldn’t walk very far until I had to stop, take off my shoe and shake it until the small stone, about the size of a pea, would roll out, put my shoe back on and keep on walking.  Life is like that sometimes.  In life, however, you can’t stop, take off your shoes and shake out the “thorn” that is in  your flesh.

    There are a couple of valuable lessons in the above passage.  First, we see that Satan’s messengers are active and that they can “buffet” the believer.  If Paul could be buffeted, so can we.  Paul regarded whatever it was as a “thorn in the flesh” and he prayed three times to have it removed and God said, “no.”  The thorn was used by God to keep Paul “humble.”  He could have easily been proud of his special revelation but was not.  Third, we see that Christ gives a promise that is applicable to all of us in any situation in which we find ourselves.  God’s grace is sufficient for “thee.”  It is sufficient for Paul and it is sufficient for you and me.  To be honest, I have a hard time with patience in my life in regard to people and situations in which I find myself.  You know what happens when you pray for patience?  You get tribulation because tribulation works patience.  (And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; Romans 5:3   You will never know you are getting better at patience without having the tribulation in your life to “prove” it.  In every failure in my life, i am able to go back to this promise of God’s grace and that it is sufficient even in the face of my “thorn” for that day.  Sometimes, we may feel like we are in a briar patch of thorns instead of just one but God, but GOD, is working in our lives and we are growing day by day.  Praise God today for even the thorns and especially His grace.