“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.”
What have you been praying about lately?
Most of us would prefer a different answer to our prayers.
When we bring a burden to God, we usually want Him to remove it. If there is a problem, we want a solution. If there is pain, we want relief. If there is a weakness, we want strength.
That is how Paul prayed as well.
In 2 Corinthians 12, he speaks about a
“thorn in the flesh,”
some ongoing affliction that troubled him deeply. We are not told exactly what it was, but we know that Paul asked the Lord three times to take it away.
It was a reasonable prayer and it was a sincere prayer. Yet the answer Paul received was not what he expected or hoped for.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
At first, that may sound disappointing. Instead of removing the burden, Jesus promises grace. Instead of taking away the weakness, He promises His presence within it.
Yet Paul came to see that this was not a lesser gift. It was a greater one.
Had the Lord removed the thorn, Paul would have experienced relief. But through the thorn, Paul experienced something deeper: the sustaining grace of Christ.
That is often how God works in our lives.
There are burdens He removes. There are prayers He answers in exactly the way we hope. But there are also times when He allows a struggle to remain. A chronic illness. A difficult relationship. A recurring disappointment. A limitation we wish we did not have.
In those moments, we may assume that God is distant or inactive because the problem has not gone away.
But Paul discovered the opposite.
The presence of weakness did not mean the absence of God. In fact, it became the very place where Christ’s strength was most clearly revealed.
This runs against everything our culture teaches. We admire self-sufficiency. We celebrate strength. We often try to hide our weaknesses from others and sometimes even from ourselves.
But the Christian life is built on a different foundation.
We come to Christ not because we are strong, but because we are weak. We are saved not because we are capable, but because we need a Savior. And throughout our lives, God continues to teach us to rely on His strength rather than our own.
That does not make weakness pleasant. Paul never pretends that it is. But it does mean that weakness is no longer meaningless.
It becomes a place where we learn to depend on Christ.
A place where grace is not merely an idea, but a daily reality.
A place where the power of Jesus is seen not through our ability, but through His faithfulness.
Remember that God wants us to trust Him and rely on Him. It seems to me that God’s ultimate goal is not that you would be wealthy, be free from struggle, or accomplish great things, even if those great things would be for the Kingdom of God. He wants you to believe and trust in Him. He wants your first instinct in life to be turning to Him. And He wants you to know Him and His faithfulness.
For Paul, he says that God gave him this thorn in the flesh to keep him from pride. He WAS doing great things for the kingdom of God and had seen visions of God in heaven. He was also a former Pharisee and Pharisees were prone to pride. So, God protects Paul from pride and possibly going astray by giving him a thorn in his flesh and refusing to remove it because He loves Paul.
So if you are carrying something today that feels heavy or unresolved, do not assume that God’s grace is absent because your weakness remains.
His grace is with you and may be meeting you there in ways you cannot yet see.
And His grace is enough.
Let’s pray…
Lord Jesus,
There are burdens in my life that I would gladly lay down if given the choice. You know my weaknesses, my struggles, and the things that cause me pain.
When You choose not to remove them, help me to trust that Your grace is still at work. Teach me to rely on Your strength rather than my own and to find comfort in Your presence.
Remind me that Your power is not limited by my weakness. Instead, it is often revealed through it.
Thank You for Your sufficient grace and Your unfailing faithfulness.
Amen.
As part of your devotion time, I encourage you to also pray for at least some of the following:
After praying for these people, you may want to finish your devotion time with the Lord’s Prayer…
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. They will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and every. Amen.
In Christ’s Service,
Pastor Kurt
