04-08-10 (Wednesday) “Thorn In My Flesh”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

“To 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. 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.”

My prayers have sounded something like this for a long time now. That “the Lord will take it away from me.” Now, I’ve come to realize how even these things have been for my benefit though it may not seem so in the present. I thank God for the weaknesses in me. Those are what keep me in check. They are constant reminders that I have plenty of work to do with myself, that I am far, FAR (in fact, light years away) from being perfect. Way to the moon

I’m still not at the level where I can say “I delight in weaknesses, in hardships and in difficulties” but I can say that “I delight in having a God IN THE MIDST of all these. A God Who cares and Who watches over.”

“For when I am weak, then I am strong.”