What Does True Strength Look Like?

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 "Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given 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 starts out chapter 12 by sharing his ecstatic "out of body" experience, where he was caught up to the third heaven.  When Paul says "third heaven", he does not mean there is more than one heaven.  The Jewish rabbi's taught the first heaven was the blue sky, the second heaven the stars, and the third heaven was where God ruled and reigned.  Basically Paul is saying that I have had profound experiences just like the others you call "super-apostles".  Yet Paul does not choose to boast about such experiences.   

Instead Paul takes a differenct tack. Despite how great his experience was, God taught him much more through what he calls a "thorn in the flesh".  Though we don't know what his thorn in the flesh, it was most likely a natural weakness Paul could not change.  He wanted to get rid of it so bad that he "pleaded" with God "three times" for him to remove it.  But instead of removing the thorn God said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness."  God could have removed this thorn in the flesh from Paul's life, but he did not.  God used Paul's weakness in force him to rely on God's grace.  Though some might have considered this a weakness, in the end this thorn caused Paul to rely on God and made him stronger.  In his weakness Paul was strong, because he could only rely on God's grace and strength to cope with this thorn.  There the weakness revealed God's strength.

What is your thorn in the flesh?  What is one thing you struggle with that you wish God would remove?  You may even wonder why God hasn't removed it?  Like Paul, God allows challenging things in our lives to push us to rely on Him.  If we could do everything and never faced any difficulty we might be apt to think too highly of ourselves and become self-dependent.  But our thorn in the flesh keeps us relying on a strength that is greater than ourselves.  And that strength is Jesus himself.  Jesus also knew weakness, but in his weakness He cried out to His Father, and God the Father strengthened him to face among other things the cross.

As you learn to accept your thorn in your flesh, you will realize it keeps you dependent on God.  And you will realize that even in your weakness you can serve God with a strength that is not your own.  You will be able to relate to others who in their weakness need to accept their own thorn.  Your example will help them to realize that when we are weak we are strong. We are strong because it is the Lord who gives us strength!