Monday, May 12, 2025

Thorn in the Flesh

We talk so often about Paul's "thorn in the flesh" - that thing that he prayed, it seemed, so earnestly over but that God chose not to remove. Paul even tells us that - God chose not to remove it. 

Immediately, our minds go to our own troubles, our own trials, the things in our own lives that we can't seem to get rid of, can't seem to get past, can't seem to heal from. We wonder what it is that makes God want us to keep it, what it is about it that He won't heal it for us. 

We have prayed. Oh, we have prayed. We have prayed earnestly. We have prayed feverishly. We have prayed, gotten distracted, then prayed some more because we have wanted God to know how important this thing is to us. We have given up praying, then come back to it because it's the only real hope that we have of any relief, any release...and we keep coming back even when God's very clear answer seems to be a very clear "no." 

I wonder if Paul kept praying. 

Paul tells us that he prayed, that he prayed quite a bit, that he prayed the same kind of desperate, angsty prayers that we pray, but that God had chosen not to take his thorn in the flesh away. He says this with such a plainness, such a matter-of-factness that we could go one of two directions here: we could believe that Paul kept praying over this thorn for the rest of his life, always hoping, always knowing that God can even if God doesn't...or we could decide that Paul recognized that God had no interest in healing him and therefore, accepted God's will and stopped praying. 

Stopping praying over the thorn in the flesh doesn't mean you stop praying about the situation, though. Especially if you're a man of God like Paul. It just changes the way that you pray. 

Maybe Paul did stop praying for healing. Maybe Paul accepted that God simply didn't want to heal him from whatever this thing was. Paul, then, (at least, I believe) would have started praying for the grace to live with it. For the insight to keep on going. For the patience to deal with it. For the strength not to succumb to it. 

I think this feels like defeat to most of us. It's hard to accept that something is never going to change. It's hard to let ourselves believe that. It feels like giving up, especially when we know God is able. It feels like giving in to something dark and heavy, something that is taking away the light in our life and limiting our ability to do the things we want to do...even the things we want to do for the glory of God. 

These thorns in the flesh present so many challenges, so many dilemmas for us besides just the things they obviously do, the challenges they obviously present. A broken leg doesn't only affect your ability to walk. Your ability to walk affects your ability to stand, to get up, to carry things, to navigate certain terrain. It doesn't take long for the pain and inability to use a broken leg to show itself in the simplest of things - like taking a shower, having a meal at the table, attending your kid's soccer game. These things spiral. 

And yet, God doesn't want to heal us from all of them. Our God who is able also says no

Now what?  

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