Brown's Daily Word 10-16-07

Good Morning,
Praise the Lord, for He is the maker of heaven and earth. He is the one who makes something beautiful out of nothing. He also is the Master who specializes in using broken lives, broken things and the broken vessels for His glory. He can use our weaknesses and our human fragilities for His glory when we fully surrender our lives to Him and place ourselves under His sovereign authority.
Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission, knew the secret of strength through weakness. Complimented once by a friend on the impact of the mission, Hudson answered, “It seemed to me that God looked over the whole world to find a man who was weak enough to do His work, and when He at last found me, He said, ‘He is weak enough—he’ll do.’ All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.” - Our Daily Bread, May 13, 1996
This story illustrates a great truth and a great paradox of our Christian faith.
It is the reality that to be strong in the things of God, we must be weak. When we are in Christ, we are weak but strong. This is a clear theme 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. Paul found himself boasting, but he was boasting in a way we usually don’t think of boasting. He was boasting of his weakness, of his difficulties, and of his troubles. Here, we begin to see his purpose in boasting. For most people, bragging about experiences, abilities, and accomplishments is a way to build themselves up in the eyes of others – to make much of themselves so others will make much of them.
We see it often in our culture. We see it in Hollywood. We see it in Washington politics. We see it in sports. Unfortunately, we see it in the church. Paul saw it in the church at Corinth, too. Bragging, even in a minor way, is a fairly common occurrence in our regular discourse. But for Paul his bragging and his boasting had a different purpose. As we glean from 2 Corinthians 12, we see what his purpose is.
If Paul was inclined to boast about himself, to build himself up in the eyes of others, he would have immediately told us that he was, in fact, the man in Christ who had a first-hand experience of heaven. It’s a privilege to be used by God as His instrument in anything. It was an amazing honor for Paul to receive this revelation of heaven, this experience of being “caught up” into the third heaven, above the earth and sky, above the stars, into heaven with God.
God gave Paul what Paul eventually came to recognize as a gift. He writes in verse 7 that “there was given me a thorn in the flesh.” Isn’t that an interesting way to view this? Why didn’t Paul say “I was afflicted with,” or “I was cursed with” a thorn in the flesh? Why did he choose to write “there was given me.” We don’t know what the thorn in the flesh was. Many scholars think it was some sort of physical ailment, and the phrase “the flesh” seems to bear that out. Others think it may have been persecution, or some sort of spiritual resistance. But, whatever it was, that’s not the point. Whatever it was, it was unpleasant, likely very painful – probably physically, or maybe emotionally, or both. It might have also been embarrassing.
I think one reason we are not told exactly what it was is because we can all relate to this better without specifics. We all have thorns in our lives that won’t go away. We may ask the Lord to take them from us, but He doesn’t choose to do so. It doesn’t really matter, for the purposes of what we need to learn from this passage, what Paul’s thorn was. It doesn’t really matter what our thorn is. That’s not the point. We begin to see the point when we see God’s answer to Paul’s prayer. I believe that God answers prayer, don’t you? I believe that when we seek God, and petition God in prayer, He not only hears but He answers. We must, however, remember that sometimes the answer is no.
What do we do when God says no, or when we don’t get a clear answer? Paul, for one, kept praying. Scripture is clear that when we don’t perceive an answer from God, continuing to pray is absolutely appropriate. Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow to teach us this lesson in Luke 18. Paul no doubt knew this so he prayed, and he prayed again. It’s not clear from the context of the passage whether God answered Paul specifically all three times. It’s possible that after the first time Paul’s thorn in the flesh didn’t go away; he didn’t hear an answer from God, so he decided to pray again, as the thorn, whatever it was, was still causing him some pain. It’s possible that this happened twice…. that is, he prayed, got no answer, and prayed again.
Sometimes, we don’t sense any answers when we pray. At other times, God is clear with us, and gives us a revelation as to why He’s saying no, but in Paul’s case here God said no. But God didn’t stop with just saying no. He didn’t just say to Paul, “No, I’m not going to take away this thorn.” He said two things, “My grace is sufficient for you” and “My power is perfected in weakness.” The message is clear; God was telling Paul that His power, God’s power, was not just perfected in weakness in general, but in Paul’s weakness. By extension, God's strength is made perfect your weakness and my weakness, also.
With this Paul learned that his thorn had a purpose. Paul learned that even though God would not take away this thorn, God would be with him. It was more important to Paul to have God’s presence in the midst of the suffering the thorn brought than to have the thorn removed. That’s quite a remarkable thing to say.
After God spoke the comforting words to him that His grace was sufficient for Paul, Paul began to recognize something important, and these are important things we all must recognize.
Paul had begun to make the argument that the only thing he could boast in was his weakness. Here, in verse 9, that takes on new meaning. After God had told him that not only is His grace sufficient – that God’s grace would sustain Paul, enable Paul to stand firm in anything that he would experience, including the pain, suffering, and embarrassment of the thorn - but also that God’s power was perfected, that is, made perfect in Paul’s weakness.
Paul learned, and we too learn, that not only does God walk with us, and with His grace provide the strength we need when He, in His sovereign purposes, chooses not to remove certain trials and difficult circumstances from our lives, but God also glorifies Himself, and summons His power in us and through us, in those very same circumstances. He reveals His power and His strength in us to His glory.
In Him,
Brown

Quotations of G. K. Chesterton

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." -

"If there were no God, there would be no atheists." -

"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions." -

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." -
How Retired People Have Fun
Working people frequently ask retired folks what they do to make their days interesting...

I went to the store the other day. I was in there for only about five minutes. When I came out there was a city cop writing out a parking ticket.

I went up to him and said, "Come on, buddy, how about giving a senior a break?"

He ignored me and continued writing the ticket.

I called him a name. He glared at me and started writing another ticket for having worn tires.

So I called him a worse name. He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first.

Then he started writing a third ticket.

This went on for about 20 minutes. The more I abused him the more tickets he wrote.

I didn't care. My car was parked around the corner and this one had a "Kerry-Edwards" bumper sticker on it.

I try to have a little fun each day now that I'm retired.

It's important at our age