2 Corinthians 12:5-9 NLT5 That experience is worth boasting about, but I’m not going to do it. I will boast only about my weaknesses. 6 If I wanted to boast, I would be no fool in doing so, because I would be telling the truth. But I won’t do it, because I don’t want anyone to give me credit beyond what they can see in my life or hear in my message, 7 even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. 8 Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9 Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
For a while now, I have had this thorn in my flesh – a sharp prick that often makes my joy dull and my sorrow significant. Paul calls it a thorn, and my psychiatrist named it depression. I thought naming it clinically would help. When a problem is identified, then a solution can surely be found, right? If I know what causes the splinter, then I can treat and heal it, right? But over the years, I have tried all kinds of methods and suggestions from people and the internet. They all worked to varying degrees, but eventually, the cloud that I tried so hard to push away came storming back and rained hard on me.
So as I often sit down, soaking wet from my tears yet numbingly cold in my soul, I ask God: “Can I ever be completely healed?” Every year, I pray this without fail. There are seasons when I believed it – that He answers my prayer with a resounding ‘Yes ’– and I forget what it feels like to be all gloom and doom. But in a few months, it comes back, and I wonder again if I heard God wrong.
After a particularly hard season recently, I prayed again earnestly and started a conversation with Him. I know God is faithful. There is no question in my mind about who He is and what kind of character He has. The God I read in the Bible has proven himself over and over, and He is the same God that has been walking with me all these years. But my question is, “How are You faithful here? If You are faithful then, how are You faithful now, when I have asked You the same thing over and over again?”
I think about this thorn in my flesh, and just as God is faithful to me, it has also faithfully stuck with me. At this point, I will be honest and say that I don’t have the faith that I will be healed. I want to see it. I even want to imagine it, but I can’t. I cannot be full of faith about it. I don’t have that perspective.
But then another voice came to my mind: “Where would you be without this thorn? You know My word well. So ask yourself this: how can My promises still be true now?” And the truths came to me, one by one.
Without these storms clouding my mind, I wouldn’t know the peace that transcends all understanding.
Without reaching the end of myself, I wouldn’t know how to pray fervently and without ceasing in desperation.
Without seeing how broken I am, I wouldn’t see the mending in my heart that God has been doing, working all things for my good, for me who loves him and has been called according to His purpose.
Without being in complete hopelessness, I wouldn’t experience the extreme hopefulness of His purpose for me nor His acceptance of me.
Without walking through the valley of death, I wouldn’t have Jesus holding my hand and shepherding me through green pastures.
Without this thorn in my flesh, His power wouldn’t be made perfect in my weakness and I wouldn’t be able to see and experience it.
So the answer is yes, God is still faithful. His promises are still true, even with this thorn and especially through it. He is faithful even when I am faithless.
God’s promise is still true in all of these instances, through the storm and the desert. He was with me and still is with me. He gave me peace in the midst of tribulation. He gave me friends who stick closer than a brother or sister. He was close to me in my brokenheartedness and saved my crushed spirit. He pruned me and taught me His ways, wrote His words on my heart, so I remember His goodness. He captured my thoughts, held them captive, and transformed them into His truths. He led me beside still waters and held my right hand still.
“So what thorn are you asking me to take away?”
Yes, why am I asking for this? I am already more blessed here in my afflictions than if I didn’t have them. He gave me his blessings through this, and they are greater than the weight of my pain.