Accepting Your Thorns

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Cor 12:10

Most of us do not have such a positive outlook when faced with tribulation as Paul appears to  in this verse. We dread hardships and cower before calamity. And, to make matters worse, cowering and dreading causes us to stumble, showing us our weakness and seeming to humiliate  us in the process.

Failing at the tasks God has put before us seems to suck us deeper into despair. If God never gives us anything beyond what we’re able to bear (1 Cor 10:13), then why do we miss the mark more often than make it? How could He possibly still want us if we manage to mess up when we should be able to conquer?

Verse 9 of that same chapter should give us some reassurance when the LORD says “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’” God reminds Paul - and us - that he is not going to succeed in everything God has put before him. God’s teachings are most effective when failure has humbled our outlook and only then are we ready to hear what God has to say.

God has given us our weaknesses for a reason - they will help shape us into His likeness as we walk toward His Kingdom. They can be painful - whether in a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual sense - they are supposed to be, at least in part. Paul aptly calls one of his own difficulties a ‘thorn’. Sharp and often painful, thorns protect the bud of the rose from the outside forces that might seek to destroy it. Similarly, our own thorns protect us from the world around us.

Without them, our walk would be brief, as the shears of the world would quickly clip the bud of our spiritual growth. Thorns make these shears falter and hesitate. Pride halts, seeking a way through the pointy barricade. Self-reliance is pricked when it comes too close to snuffing out our spiritual life.

Thank God for your insecurities, your faltering tongue, your fumble-fingers, your social awkwardness. They help set our focus and reliance on God - where it needs to be. We cannot walk this path alone. Instead we need to be shaped and molded into God’s likeness, a feat that would be completely impossible if not for our struggles and imperfections. This is God’s way.

So be content with your struggles. Know that God is working with you. If He didn’t care for you, He wouldn’t send these trials to shape your faith. But He does care for you, and so He molds you with the help of your thorns - protecting the blossoming bud of your faith so you can continue your walk.

“... ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the LORD, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the LORD disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.’” Heb 12:5-6

In the Hope of Israel,

Mikaelah B 

 "For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." Psalms 84:10