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8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
[2 Corinthians 12:8-10 ESV]
Introduction
Some of us find ourselves pleading with God for three years (much less three times), that he might make some “thorn” of ours “leave” us.
Have you been there?
Whether the thorn is a medical issue in your body or a besetting sin you notice in your heart or a challenging circumstances that surrounds you, thorns provoke us toward an awareness of at least two things: (1) Our utter weakness in the most plain sense, and (2) They prove to us we are unable to garner for ourselves that which is sufficient to have our thorns leave us OR to endure up under them. In common parlance, we cannot pull ourselves up by the bootstraps.
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From Pleading to Boasting
Most of us have been here a time or two – where the content of our prayers is a pleading for some thing to leave us. It is very hard for us to imagine that ever present exposure of weakness is not only part of God’s sovereign and providential design, but that it is actually good for you. As Christians, we believe that God is good and that He is good all the time (not just when the good times are rolling).
It is good for us to take our burden and our problems and our pain and our hardship and all our “thorns” to God — yes, bring them to God, for it is good to plead with Him that He might be pleased to have these things “leave us”. Yet, there is something just as good – that we come to know for ourselves the meaning of the phrase “my grace is sufficient for you.” I pray this alternative way of facing your thorns does not provoke you to anger, but provokes you to boasting, as we’ll see in a moment.
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Thorns Expose our Weakness
When God says to Paul that His power is made perfect in weakness, God is talking about Paul’s weakness in particular not just weakness in general. The very thorns that beset Paul are in themselves a means of exposing Paul’s weakness, they are not the thing that makes him weak. Paul is already weak, with or without thorns.
To put another way. . . you are already weak whether you are aware of this or not. The thorns in your life do not produce weakness; rather, they expose your weakness.
Of course, this chafes against many of the sentimentalities of the western and modern mind where independent, self-sufficient strength is most prized. No matter how strong, how shrewd, how smart, how rich or how beautiful you are, none of these things will ever prove to be a sufficient source of power to answer your plea when thorns arise. The best of our strengths will inevitably disappoint us at a time we need it most.
The conclusion that Paul reaches after being taught that God’s grace is sufficient and God’s power is perfected in weakness is not a begrudging or sullen spirit, but a glad boasting. And once we see the connection between how God is using thorns to expose weakness to produce contentment in his grace, we will finally be enabled to actually boast…and not just “gladly”, but all the more gladly boast.
In other words, once we connect the dots that our exposed weaknesses are part of a good purpose of God; namely, to make us utterly content in his sufficient grace, it will make sense for us to boast of our weaknesses. As we learn to enjoy his sufficient grace as it is meant to be enjoyed, there will be a kind of light bulb moment in our heart that says something like, “ahh, yes, of course…boasting of my weakness makes sense now.”
To put another way, “if you are in Christ you can finally be free to admit your weaknesses because the security bound up and promised in Him is more powerful than anything the world can say or do when our weakness is exposed.”
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When the tide turns
As we learn for ourselves the meaning of the sufficiency of God’s grace, we realize that there is a kind relief from suffering that is less sufficient than the grace that enables us to endure up under it for however long God purposes it in our lives.
The principal way to know the tide is turning in our heart’s affection is through the metric of contentment.
As the sufficiency of God’s sufficient grace in Jesus Christ takes further and further root in our heart, the power that drives our new affection is no longer the prospect of relief of suffering; rather, it is the sake(ness) of Christ that empowers us. That is to say, we boast of our weaknesses not in the hope that such boasting is an ingredient to relief from pain; rather, that the power undergirding our new affection and it’s direction therein is for the sake of Christ.
When we boast , we boast for Christ’s sake,
When we rest content, we rest content for Christ’s sake,
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A New Kind of Strength
When the sufficiency of God’s sufficient grace does its work in us, we stop working to hide our weaknesses from others. The content of our boast is not what we think we’ve gained under our strength; but rather, who we know by and through our exposed weaknesses; namely Jesus Christ.
Paul says to the church in Philippi:
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
[Philippians 3:18 (ESV)]
The greater our gain of Christ, the greater our gain of everything we truly need when our lives are wrought with thorns. And because of the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus, the most counter intuitive thing occurs: When we are weak, then we are strong.
This new kind of strength is supernatural because only God’s power enables it. We ought not think that one drop of this newfound strength is conjured-up by us in any way. Every conceivable measure of this newfound strength is inextricably bound to and flows from God’s all sufficient grace.
The only way to know God’s strength, we must know his grace. The only way to know his grace is to prove our weakness. The only way to prove our weakness is for God to ordain a thorn in our side where he lets it linger for a time, long enough to bring us to the point where we plead with him to have it leave us.
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As You Plead
As you plead with him in your hardships, pain, suffering and difficulties, may you plead with him to know for yourself the sufficiency of God’s grace more than the removal of your thorns. Don’t stop praying to remove thorns, but make that prayer subordinate to grasping onto the grace of God that is in itself sufficient to help you bear up under even the most excruciating of thorns.
The best of the strength God has for you in Christ is found in contentment with your weakness and not merely that your thorns have left you.
Application Questions
1. What are the top three “thorns” in your life today? List them somewhere either in a journal or in your phone.
2. What are some ways you tend to try to make the thorns leave? Example might include:
- Alcohol? Sex? Spending money you don’t have? Etc.
- Complaining? Grumbling? Coveting?
- Pleading with God in prayer?
3. If you were to teach someone the definition of the idea of “my grace is sufficient”, how would you explain it someone?
4. What are the top three barriers you notice seems to “block” contentment with your weakness?
5. What do you imagine happening if the weaknesses you’re not content with having are exposed for others to see?
6. What needs to shift in your heart to positively move the proverbial needle in the metric of contentment?
7. As you read this article, what surfaces about what would eb good for you to pray concerning your heart and life?