Grateful in the Storm?
It’s a good thing to count our blessings… But there’s a step beyond that God challenges us to take. That is to give thanks and praise to God even in the storms of life.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7–10 (NIV84):
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. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 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.
Paul encounters this “thorn.” Is his thorn a physical handicap or disorder? External pressure? Financial? We can only guess. Leaving it vague allows us to read our own infirmities into it.
Paul’s First Response:
1. Prayer. Lord take this thorn away! This thorn is from the devil. It is holding me back from doing your work. 3x he prayed.
2. God’s Answer: “my grace is sufficient for you.” I.E., This thorn is useful. Essential.
3. Change in Paul’s perspective. Same mission. Same “thorn.”
“I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecution’s, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”