Prayer and the Thorn in Your Flesh

Is there a particular area of weakness in your life or a specific struggle that you just can’t seem to overcome or get rid of? Have you ever prayed and asked God to take a particular burden away, but he doesn’t do it?

There’s a personal story in one of Paul’s letter to the Christians living in the ancient city of Corinth where he describes a personal struggle that he had been dealing with for quite some time. He refers to this personal struggle as the “thorn in his flesh”, and he describes it as a messenger from Satan that tormented him and kept him from becoming proud.

Scholars have discussed and debated what this “thorn in the flesh” might be, but nobody really knows. There’s simply not enough information to know for sure what Paul is referring to here.

Some have said that it could be…

• A particular temptation or sin that he struggled with

• A physical illness or medical condition of some kind

• Or maybe the stress and spiritual battle of leading the churches

We simply don’t know.

Paul’s Prayer

One theory that I find very interesting is that maybe his thorn in the flesh was actually this constant vision and voice in his head that reminded him of his past and attacked his identity as an apostle of Jesus. He had been a religious activist who terrorized and targeted Christians. He was actually on the scene and had held the jackets of the men who stoned Stephen — the first Christian martyr. Maybe Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a constant whispering in his ear…

“Who do you think you are Paul? Did God really say that he wanted you to be his special messenger to the Mediterranean world? Come on Paul. You know who you really are. You know what you’ve done. You’re not a Church-Planter; you’re the Church-Persecutor, remember? And no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to erase that about you. You’ll never be who you want to be.”

That kind of accusing voice could definitely be the thorn in his flesh that tormented him. Who knows. But if so, you can imagine how much louder that voice would become each time he ran into problems with the churches that he was trying to plant.

Each time he was insulted, arrested, persecuted or rejected, you can hear that voice in his head saying, “You’re never going to make it Paul. This isn’t working. Why are you doing this? You thought you heard from God, but you were wrong. You’re failing at this. You’re not good enough to do this.”

Whatever this struggle was, Paul prayed about it and asked God on several different occasions to take this struggle away from him. In fact, he didn’t just ask God; he said that he begged God to take it away from him.

And here’s the thing: God didn’t take it away.

God’s Answer

Have you ever prayed and begged God to do something in your life, and he didn’t do it? You knew he could do it, but he didn’t do it? Paul begged God to take this struggle away, and God didn’t do it. But notice what God did do. Paul says,

Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. And each time he said to me, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”

That’s interesting.

God doesn’t take the thorn away; he tells Paul what he needs to know about it.

It’s almost as if God tells Paul,

“Paul, I hear you and I care about you. And yes, I could take this away from you. But you know what? I’ve got big plans for you, and so instead of taking this away I’m going to use it for your good. I want you to learn something about yourself and about me that is going to transform the trajectory of your life. I want you to know that I don’t need you to be perfect or some sort of super-apostle. Listen, my grace is all you need. And my power actually works best in weakness — it works best in those who are relying on me and what I can do instead of on what they can do in their own wisdom, ability and strength.”

God doesn’t take the thorn away; he tells Paul what he needs to know about it.

God takes Paul’s struggle and uses it to deeper demonstrate his love for Paul and to take Paul into a deeper level of trust than he would have experienced if God just simply gave him what he asked for.

The Thorn in Your Flesh

What is one thing that immediately comes into your mind that you could describe as a thorn in your flesh?

• Is it a particular temptation or sin that you struggle with?

• Is it a physical illness or medical condition that you or someone in your family has?

• Is it the stress and spiritual battle of attaching your identity to your performance?

• Is it a voice of some kind that creates fear, anxiety or doubts in your mind?

What have you tried to do about it?

• Are you just pretending it’s not there? (“Everything’s fine.”)

• Are you working hard to overcome it on your own? (“Try harder.”)

• Have you learned to just cope with it? (“Just how it is.”)

• Have you taken it on as part of your identity? (“Just who I am.”)

• Have you prayed about it and asked God to take it away? (“Where are you?”)

Well, based on what we learn here from Paul, what if we tried this: Instead of praying and asking God to take our thorn away, what if we prayed and asked God, “Father, what do you want me to know about this? What do you want me to know about this particular thorn in my life?”

• What do you want me to know about this thing that keeps bothering me?

• What do you want me to know about my fear of failure?

• What do you want me to know about never feeling good enough?

• What do you want me to know about this particular sin in my life?

• What do you want me to know about my need for approval?

God didn’t take the thorn away; he told Paul what he needed to know about it.

You see, every thorn in our life — every negative emotion or experience — is an opportunity and an invitation to enter into a conversation with God and to ask him, “Father, what do you want me to know about this?”

A Different Prayer

I want us to try this. I invite you to take 10 minutes tomorrow morning — the first 10 minutes of your morning tomorrow. And I want you to pray about the thing that came to mind when I asked you what is the thorn in your own life. I want you to pray about it, and I want you to ask God, “Father, what do you want me to know about ______?”

God — in his brilliance and grace — works out all things in our life for our good. And part of that is that he sometimes wants to take our particular struggles and areas of weakness and use them to tell us something. Sometimes he doesn’t just take them away or give us some sort of supernatural strength to overcome them; instead he uses them to demonstrate his love for us and to take us into a deeper level of trust than we’d experience if he just gave us what we asked for.

And so, let’s change our perspective on how we pray about certain struggles, and let’s listen to what God may want to say. What might he want to tell us and teach us about himself and about ourselves through the thorns in our own lives?

Let’s ask him about it.