After years of struggling with chronic fatigue, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, and I now sleep with a CPAP machine. Even with this partial answer to my fatigue, I still sometimes wonder why God would allow this. Doesn’t he know I could produce more and better work if I didn’t have to deal with this? However, regardless of whether that’s true, I can rest assured that God has a greater purpose in my weakness than allowing me to produce a higher volume of higher quality work. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul describes three purposes for which God will sometimes prick us with thorny weaknesses.

To Humble Us

 “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (v. 7). Twice Paul says that this thorn was given to him so that he wouldn’t become conceited. God put this trial in Paul’s life to humble him. Astonishingly, Paul says this thorn was “a messenger of Satan to harass me.” However, Satan’s goal would never be to humble a Christian, so we know that God was behind this. He was the one who put the thorn in Paul’s flesh, who allowed Satan to harass Paul, who used Satan as his tool to humble Paul.

Wasn’t there a better way? Couldn’t God have humbled Paul differently? Wouldn’t it have been better to let him be proud than to make him suffer? Apparently not. This was the wisest, most loving thing that God could have done for Paul because God never acts otherwise.

Doubts about this are founded on at least two false assumptions. One is that proud comfort is safer than humble discomfort, and the other is that our comfort is the most important factor in our lives. However, “pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18), so it truly is “better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud” (Proverbs 16:19). And the most important thing in our lives, and in the entire universe, is God’s glory, not our comfort (1 Corinthians 10:31). Very often, we need weakness to expose this kind of wrong thinking and realign our thinking with the truth.

To Teach Us the Sufficiency of Christ’s Grace

After Paul asked God three times to pull the thorn out, the Lord told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (v. 9). Along with all the weaknesses that God gives us, he also promises his all-sufficient and all-powerful grace. Without the bitter sting of weakness, we would likely never know the sweet taste of his grace. We would proudly strive in our own futile strength instead of humbly resting in Christ’s sufficiency.

Christ’s grace is sufficient. We may not be able to do what we want how we want, but God will give us grace to endure the thorny pain and carry out His will in a way that glorifies him. Paul continued ministering through his numerous thorns. Even when I’m tired, God can give me grace to love my wife, do my work well, and resist temptation.

Will we be content with this, though? Do we love our comfort more than the glory of God and the sweet taste of His grace? It’s not wrong to pray for God to remove discomfort, but if He says no, will we be content?

To Display Christ’s Power

At the end of his statement to Paul, the Lord said, “For my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul goes on to say, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (v. 9).

Paul saw weakness as the doorway to a greater strength than he could ever muster himself. He was excited about this because it gave him more opportunity to glorify his Lord. As people saw him ministering amidst obvious weaknesses, they would marvel, and he could say, “It’s not my strength that allows me to do this. I’m quite weak, as you can see. This is possible because of the great power of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

When we experience weakness, it gives us an opportunity to display the power of Christ in our lives. Notice that the weakness and pain doesn’t go away; we simply have strength to bear it for God’s glory. When we are tired and still patient with our kids, that’s a display of Christ’s strength in us. When we’re kind to a coworker who mocks our faith, that’s a display of Christ’s strength in us. When we’re diagnosed with cancer and still rejoice and praise God for His goodness, that’s a display of Christ’s strength in us. Weakness, in its many forms, is one of the greatest opportunities we’ll have in life to glorify God by displaying his unbelievable power through our obvious lack of power. Does that excite and thrill our hearts?

A Fresh Perspective on Weakness

Looking at these purposes for weakness gives me a fresh perspective on the thorns God gives me, and I hope it does you too. Instead of inconveniences or mere discomforts, we can see them as lovingly and wisely orchestrated by our heavenly Father for good purposes. Instead of hindering our service for Christ, we can see thorns as opportunities to glorify him in a greater way. Instead of making us look bad, we can see them as ways to show how awesomely powerful and sufficient our God is. Instead of making us truly weak, we can see them as making us truly strong in Christ’s strength.

The question naturally arises, though, “What kinds of weaknesses does this apply to?” Much ink has been spilled over trying to identify Paul’s thorn in the flesh, but I’m convinced that he intentionally kept it vague so this passage’s applicational power wouldn’t be limited. That’s why he ends with a list of different thorns: “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” (v. 10). No matter what thorn you experience, whether physical illness or a tendency toward a certain sin, these truths and this perspective apply to it. These purposes shaped Paul’s perspective on weakness, which enabled him to boast about and be content in his weaknesses (v. 9-10). We normally boast about things like accomplishments and talents. However, when we have this perspective, and when God’s glory is the supreme factor in our lives, we, too, will boast about and be content in our weaknesses.