My Grace Is Enough

Three times, a man kneels and begs God to take away something that hurts. Three times, he waits. And when the answer finally comes, it is not the answer he asked for. It is better.

Paul is still answering the boasters in Corinth. They have been bragging about their visions and spiritual experiences, as if those proved they were closer to God. Paul has already boasted, as a joke, about his sufferings and his escape in a basket. Now he turns to visions. Because he could boast about those too. But notice how strangely he tells it. He doesn't even say I. He says, I know a man.

I know a man in Christ, Paul says, who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether in the body or out of the body, I don't know. God knows. This man was caught up into paradise, and he heard things too sacred for words, things no person is allowed to tell. I will boast about a man like that, Paul says. But about myself I won't boast, except about my weaknesses. Paul is clearly talking about himself, but he keeps it at arm's length. He tells us almost nothing about what he saw. Because he doesn't want anyone to think more of him than what they can see him do and hear him say.

And then he tells the other side of the story. To keep me from becoming proud because of these amazing revelations, Paul says, “there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me.” Something that kept hitting him, again and again. He doesn't tell us what it was. A sickness, perhaps. A pain. Something that made him feel small and weak. Whatever it was, it hurt, and Paul wanted it gone. “For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.” Three times. Not a quick prayer, but begging. Please, Lord. Take it away.

And the Lord answered him. “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” My grace is enough for you. Not, I'll take it away. But, I will be with you in it, and my kindness will carry you. My power shows most clearly when you are weak. Paul's whole attitude changes. “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” So, he says, for Christ's sake I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and troubles. And then he says one of the most surprising sentences in the Bible. “For when I am weak, then am I strong.”

The Greek word Paul uses for thorn, skolops, could mean a sharp splinter or thorn, and in other Greek writing also a pointed stake. Either way, it was something that pierced and stayed. People have guessed for centuries what Paul's thorn was. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul mentions that he first preached to them because of an illness, and that they would have given him their own eyes if they could. Some think that is a clue. But Paul never says, and perhaps that is the point: anyone with any thorn can hear God's answer.

My grace is enough. You'll find it in Second Corinthians chapter twelve, verses one to ten. A man who saw paradise, but learned his greatest lesson from a thorn. He asked God to take his weakness away, and God promised to be strong in it. So here is a question to carry with you. What weakness or struggle do you need to hear God say to you: my grace is enough?