A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me,
to keep me from becoming conceited
2 Corinthians 12:7b
I have a
thorn. I usually call it insecurity, but
I don’t know if that name fully explains it. You see, like, I suppose, a lot of people, I like to be liked by
people. And, well, I guess I can tend to
find my worth in my relationships with people and others’ opinions of me. The problem comes when I lose confidence in
this area. I don’t always trust my
conversational skills to be able to develop these relationships with people,
and I let this problem discourage me. I
begin to feel like I don’t have good relationships with people, which causes me
to struggle with loneliness. And since I
find my worth in my relationships, you can imagine how this issue makes me feel
about my worth.
This
problem is nothing new. I dealt with it,
at least to a certain extent, before the Race. And since I began the Race not knowing a single person, it’s been with
me throughout these 9 ½ months. In the
last 3 or so months, however, it’s been worse. More often than not, there have been days when it’s just knocked me
down. Loneliness and, I guess, for lack
of a better word, depression, fill me to where I just feel defeated. It’s affected how I relate to the people
around me, and it’s affected how I relate to God. When I get plagued by my thorn, I become
focused on myself and my problems, which stops me from being able to serve the
people around me. And I become filled
with feelings of defeat and hopelessness to where I stop having faith that
seeking out God is going to solve the problem.
Needless to
say, I’ve become sick of this issue and have been ready to be done with
it. Coming into this current month of
Manistry (all of the guys are together for this month), I began to feel like
this month would be a great time of growth for me in this area. I would be able to come out of this month and
go into the last month fully able to serve and be the man that God wants me to
be. Several days ago, I heard God tell
me that I was going to experience freedom from my insecurity this month. I believed that this issue was a spiritual
issue, and that the answer was prayer. I
shared this belief with my team and asked them to be praying for me so that I
would experience freedom. Here was the
answer. Finally, I was going to be free
from my insecurity. I would no longer
have these feelings of worthlessness and loneliness. Finally, my thorn was going to be
removed.
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.”
2 Corinthians 12:8-9a
A couple
days later, God brought me to 2 Corinthians 12. I read about Paul’s struggle with his thorn. And how he pleaded with God to remove it, and
God, well, didn’t remove it. And I
suddenly realized that I, like Paul, had a thorn. And that in the same way that God didn’t
remove Paul’s thorn (or at least not at the time he wrote his letter), God was
not going to remove mine. Freedom didn’t
mean freedom from the insecurity itself; it meant freedom from the way my
insecurity affects me. I expressed that
I no longer wanted my insecurity to stop me from being and doing everything
that God wants for me. But I don’t need
the removal of my thorn for that to happen; I just need to change my
focus. Just like God changes Paul’s
focus. God tells Paul that His grace is
sufficient and that His power is perfected in Paul’s weaknesses. In other words, Paul doesn’t need to be
strong in order for God to be strong. Even more so, Paul’s weakness humbles him in order that he may be
brought to rely more on God’s power.
And that’s
what God wants for me. You see, my
problem isn’t whether or not people like me, whether I’m good at making
conversation with people, whether I have deep relationships with people. My problem is in what I’m finding my
worth. Instead of finding my worth in my
relationships with other people, I should be finding my worth in my
relationship with God. And because I’m
not, God gives me my thorn so that every time I feel insecure, I turn to God
and find my security in Him. And as I
continue to do so, I will become more confident and secure in who I am. And yes, I will begin to experience freedom
from the plagues of my insecurity. And
God will receive all of the glory.
It’s not
always easy, but I love my thorn.
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 calamites. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
2 Corinthians
12:9b-10
