“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 12:7-10
These verses always remind me of the years I spent living in Western Nebraska. When returning home after surveying, hunting or chopping wood there would usually be an ample supply of sand burrs lodged in my socks to torment me. Paul said his was a thorn and that was probably a lot more painful than a sand burr.
While Satan jabbed a thorn into Paul’s flesh, the Lord's purpose was to humble him, to keep him from exalting himself. Pride doesn't reside in the hearts of the broken, the split-apart, the wounded, or the anguished of soul. I read this pearl of wisdom recently; “Pain plants the flag of reality in the fortress of a rebel heart." Parents and their children keeping vigil and staying safe in their humble homes in PAP do not wrestle with issues of pride. They are humbled to the point of despair. Humble, hungry and waiting.
I'm not a Biblical scholar or qualified to give you the intimate details of how Paul's thorn affected him. However, we read that he does confess that he begged the Lord on three separate occasions to remove it from him. There are prayers of request coming from Haiti for God to end the chaos. We, here in North America, are also praying the same petitions. Our fallen world needs more followers of Christ who embrace pain and hardship rather than deny them. How helpful it is for us to see all this as God's plan to keep us humble. Those lessons are learned in the trenches of life; in the terror filled, broken neighborhoods of PAP. What people of prayer we would become! How often we would turn to Him. How fully we would lean on Him. Waiting with that thorn and trusting in His hand to remove it. In His time.
Heavenly Father, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.
May God be with you,
Jay