Satisfied In All Circumstances - Can I Be Satisfied?

“Soto keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”(2 Corinthians 12:7-10,ESV)

Glass shattered across the kitchen floor after the water cup slipped from my hand. I swept the pieces and dried the mess with a towel, but a small shard of glass wedged its way into my finger. For the rest of the day, I flinched with pain every time I grasped something. The tiny glass splinter disrupted my life, refusing to let me forget about its presence.

Our lives are full of metaphorical splinters, thorns in Paul’s terminology. They’re those afflictions that burden, humbling us with the reminder that we can’t live the Christian life on our own. We don’t know what Paul’s thorn in his flesh was, but we do know it was no small inconvenience; it was agonizing and potentially debilitating.

We may experience similar weaknesses. They can be physical, like chronic pain, infertility, disability, or the 24-hour nausea of so-called “morning sickness.” They can be mental, like depression, anxiety, or intrusive thoughts. Thorns can even be circumstantial, like financial strain or strife in your church or workplace. These afflictions can make it seem as if God has abandoned us, is displeased with us, or is against us. But Paul says that for those who are in Christ, our weakness is not a hindrance, but a platform on which God’s power can be displayed. We may think that our weaknesses disqualify us from serving God, or inversely, that ministry success is a result of our talents, charisma, or hard work. But that’s not how God’s kingdom works. God’s power is at work in us—not our own. God doesn’t need our strength, abilities, or accomplishments. His grace is sufficient—it’s enough! And he is pleased to display his power in the weak, the weary, and the wavering.

Some days it feels impossible to live in our weakness, and like Paul, we plead with the Lord to make it stop. How can we be satisfied with God’s answer when it doesn’t bring relief? There was another who cried out three times for the Lord to remove his affliction. In Gethsemane, the answer was a painful and loving “No.” No, because through the suffering of Christ, we find healing. No, because the joy set before Jesus was on the other side of the cross. No, because God saw fit to display power in weakness on the tree.

In Christ, we endure weakness just as he did. But we also have his power, and every thorn is a call to depend on Jesus. When we are afflicted so greatly that we “despair of life itself,” we can be satisfied knowing that it is “to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8, 9).

We can be satisfied in our weakness because even a minuscule amount of God’s power can accomplish far more than our greatest strength. We can be satisfied because we trust that God’s “yes” and “no” are always for our eternal good. We can be satisfied because even when we grieve our weakness, we know that God’s power will be displayed in us.

Reflect:

What “thorns” in your life has God not removed? Our weakness is an opportunity to depend on Christ’s strength in us. What might it look like to depend on Christ in your current weakness? Go to him in dependence now, asking him for strength.