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. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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. 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.
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
I like this passage from the Apostle Paul. It tells me that life will not always be free of hardship or pain. It tells me that I am welcome to go to God with every need and desire, but it warns me that not every prayer will be answered as I might prefer. It encourages me that even when the answers are delayed or are not to my preference, there will be grace sufficient to see me through whatever trial I’m facing.
I thought of this passage yesterday because I had a migraine or something like it from about ten in the morning until I went to bed last night. Nothing brought relief. Painkiller. Coffee. Food. Sleep. A hot bath. None of the usual remedies for this sort of headache made a dent in this one. The best I had all day were those times when conversation or prayer or reading provided sufficient distraction to ‘forget’ that headache for a while.
More than once during the day, I prayed for relief. Relief didn’t come until I awakened at five this morning and realized the headache was gone.
But something else did come. The passage cited above came to mind and I realized that even if the headache didn’t immediately go away, it didn’t matter. Deliverance did come, but I received deliverance through the suffering instead of deliverance from the suffering.
Yes, I would have preferred to be delivered from the suffering, but I can’t help but think I would have lost something vital had that happened. I learned something or gained something through enduring that I wouldn’t have learned or gained in any other fashion. I don’t yet know what that is except maybe patience to wait and a greater trust that God will provide. I just know there was something.
In these days of uncertainty and hardship, that lesson seems very important to me. It reminds me that God is more interested in my eternal well being than in my momentary comfort. All I need to do is trust Him for the best in all situations.
I won’t be praying for more headaches, but I will be thankful for the times when they come because if, like yesterday, I let it guide me to fellowship with God, a headache is a good thing.
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. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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. 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.