MaryEllen Montville

“…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.” –2 Corinthians 12:7

So what’s yours? Your thorn, I mean? Have you never examined yourself, asking this question in your own heart?

Sadly, I don’t believe many do, at least not regularly. I know I didn’t, nowhere near as often as I ought to have, until the Holy Spirit showed me that I had a thorn placed in me. After coming to that realization, you can bet I started asking the question far more frequently. “What ‘thorn’ have You given me, Lord, and what is it meant to keep in check in my walk and service to You?”

Funny how we avoid questioning ourselves, isn’t it?

And by funny, I mean sad. Dare I say that our ignoring such introspection is akin to acting like a disobedient child? I’m addressing myself here…

We focus, instead, on those “thorns” we see so clearly in others, rather than on our own. Listen to what Jesus had to say about us behaving in such a manner: “Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that is in your brother’s eye but do not become aware of and consider the beam of timber that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Let me get the tiny particle out of your eye, when there is the beam of timber in your own eye?” –Matthew 7:3-4

It is wrong of us, sin, really, to compare ourselves, our ‘thorns, ‘to anyone else’s.

“Thank God I don’t have that thorn!”

Still, it’s not difficult to see that each of us, to one degree or another, for one purpose or another—God’s purpose, has or will have, at some point in our Christian walk, a thorn put in our flesh. As with Paul, for a reason Scripture leaves unspecified, God uses thorns to humble us, maybe to save us, refine or reshape us, causing us to turn and cling to Christ with utter childlike dependence and to cause us to recognize our desperate need for Jesus.

And here’s how I define desperate: you’re drowning, water is beginning to spill into your lungs, when suddenly a hand pulls you up and out, and air begins to take the place of water. Do you push away the hand that saved you, or, in desperation, grab hold of it for dear life?

Paul is telling us that every believer needs this level of desperate need for Jesus, just as he did.

There’s a reason Jesus tells us that, apart from Him, we can do nothing.

If Jesus did nothing on His own, how much more you and me? Are we so prideful as to admit we are “poor in spirit” as often, perhaps, as we are not? And what we do and can accomplish for God is done, as Jesus makes clear, in His strength, not ours. “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” –John 5:30

Some challenge this statement of fact by arguing that many things can and have been done without invoking Jesus’ Presence or His aid. While some may say they can do many things independently of God, in fact, they cannot. Their thinking that a thing is so does not make it so. And their self-aggrandizing attempts to exist independently of their Maker can be likened to opening one’s mouth underwater, thinking that air will somehow fill one’s lungs—useless at best, deadly overall. And while they’d be correct in their statement of fact, they’d be exposing the depth of their ignorance of God, of His Sovereignty, Omniscience and Omnipresence, of His inseparable Hand at work in the lives of men—whether said men acknowledge Him, or not. “…He makes His sun rise on those who are evil and on those who are good, and makes the rain fall on the righteous [those who are morally upright] and the unrighteous [the unrepentant, those who oppose Him].” –Matthew 5:45

So I guess, in the very broadest sense, any of us, even Jesus’ most devout child, can, if he chooses to, act independently of Christ, and rely on his own strength, instead of leaning on Jesus, though, as His children, we’re instructed not to.

Not to use our own wits and grit, so-called, rather than posturing ourselves in humble dependence and reliance on the leading and guidance of His Holy Spirit at work in us, because that’s the very definition of pride itself. Of shaking one’s fist at God in defiance and rebellious self-reliance. Man’s woeful ignorance on display, like a peacock strutting, plumes fanned out for all to admire, shrieking, “Look at me, look at me!”

“But He gives us more and more grace [through the power of the Holy Spirit to defy sin and live an obedient life that reflects both our faith and our gratitude for our salvation]. Therefore, it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD and HAUGHTY, BUT [continually] GIVES [the gift of] GRACE TO THE HUMBLE [who turn away from self-righteousness].” –James 4:6

So instead of slapping lipstick on a pig, let’s call such pride what it is: the condition at the heart of the point Paul is making to the Corinthians—to us, through his sharing with us of why God allowed this thorn, this severe mercy to touch Paul’s life. There are times in our walk with Jesus when what may feel to us like punishment is, in fact, the Love of God, dressed in a way only hindsight will recognize. “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.” –2 Corinthians 12:7

For some of us, our thorn is or will be a physical malady: cancer, a stroke, traumatic brain injury, autoimmune disease, epilepsy, crippling bone or muscular diseases, a severe speech impediment, or some physical abnormality; the list goes on. For others, their thorn is emotional: depression, anxiety, and all forms of mental health struggles.

I experienced God’s severe mercy back in 2008 when I had a massive stroke that left the left side of my body paralyzed. My brain had been so severely damaged that I needed my 79-year-old mother to care for my most basic needs: dressing, bathing, and caring for me. I had lost my ability to care for myself. According to my doctors and neurological specialists, based on the extent of brain damage I had incurred, I should have ended up never having fully recovered and in need of full-time care. But God, in His mercy, had another plan.

What certainly felt like severe mercy at the time, God used not only to restore my body and mind to what they are today, allowing me to live independently and fully functioning, but, more importantly, to lead me to Him through the “thorn” He’d allowed to touch my life. To receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior. So I can say, in hindsight, with a joy-filled heart today, that God’s allowing that stroke to touch my life was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because God used it to lead me to His Son and to experientially understand His mercy and grace, His Love, and the new life and relationship I have with Him, in Christ Jesus, my Lord.

And to answer your question, yes, there have been many times I have cried out to God. I still do, “take this thorn from me,” as profoundly grateful as I am for having experienced what it has, and does, afford me—my life in Christ. Still, truth be told, in my flesh, when experiencing the lingering after-effects, the mental struggle at times, the fatigue, and brain glitches that often accompany traumatic brain injuries of various kinds, I can understand why Paul continued to ask God to take his thorn away from him, and why so many of you do as well. But here God’s answer to Paul, to me, and to you, beloved of God: “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.” –2 Corinthians 12:9.

And His grace is sufficient in your life as well, friend, believe it or not. So won’t you ask Jesus into your life today? Let Him help give you the strength and grace to endure your “thorn.”