"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness"We don't know what the "thorn" was because Paul doesn't give us any insight into it. I think the reason for this is because it doesn't really matter what it is. It's meant for you and me to be a sort of "fill in the blank" or "insert your problem here" type of issue. This prevents us from tossing off our problems as either "nothing compared to Paul's" or just the opposite and assuming ours is so much worse than his.
We love to hear of stories of people being healed or overcoming an affliction like alcohol or drug addiction. It empowers us to feel we can overcome as well. But that is not what we as Christians are supposed to be all about. It's not about our strength but God's strength. Paul says is was sent to keep him from becoming conceited because of God's revelation given to him. It was a blessing God was giving him and not a curse. It was the only way to keep Paul humble and remind him that he is only flesh. How many Christian leaders do we see today that are all puffed up. Paul could have easily become just like them and the thorn was there to pop his little ego-balloon.
What is interesting to me is Jesus words on "grace". Grace is loving someone who doesn't deserve that love. Grace is unconditional love. How does that play into Paul's thorn? I think everyone hates thorns. I have a lemon tree in my backyard. I learned quickly that lemon trees have very large and sharp thorns ( I did not know that before ). Even after you have moved away from the thorn you can still feel it's pain of where it has stabbed you. Pain brings out the worst in us, especially when that pain is constant and never ending. I have a friend with neuropathy of the feet. His feet will suddenly feel like he is being stabbed with a bunch of knives and he will utter the most foul words you have ever heard (unless there are women in the room). I too, can be a monster when I am in pain for a lengthy period of time and I have to ask forgiveness a lot of my wife. It is here we are reminded that we are sinners at the core. It is here that we must rely on God's grace. It is here that God's power is shown in our lives and not our own power.
I am reminded of the movie "Cinderella Man" where the main character, James Braddock , falls on hard times as a boxer in the Great Depression. He loses his license to box and must work as a loading dock hand to feed his family. He breaks his right hand during a car accident and is forced to use his left hand to lift the heavy bags off the ships. Later he gets a chance to box again and even though he hasn't fought or trained in over a year he knocks the other boxer out. His manager asks him about how he was able to improve his left hook so much and he says "I broke my right hand and had to rely on my left down at the docks!". His injured right hand was a blessing because it strengthened his left. Often that is how it is with us and God. God can't work on us relying on him until he has taken away the part of us we have relied on for so long. He perfects himself in us by making us less reliant on ourselves and more reliant on him.
I have learned what that means more and more as I get older. When I was young I was so self-reliant. I could do it all myself. I could always rely on my intellect to get me through life. Whether it as school, work, church or even home I could always figure things out. When I hit 45 something suddenly changed inside me. I went through a terrible time of what I can only describe as intense brain-fog. It was the most scary time of life I had ever gone through. I felt as if God had abandoned me. He hadn't. He just took away the part of me I counted on to get me through jams. I later found out I was Low-Testosterone and I had the brain of a 90 year-old man. Even after addressing the low-T I was never really ever the same again. I cried "Why Lord?? Why now??". I still don't have that answer yet. I am like Paul, hearing God's "My grace is sufficient" message. It's not easy but I know that God loves me and his grace is all that matters.
On a final note, I think Jesus points to his grace to show Paul that our situation, our pain, our suffering is not a measure of how much God loves us. We must trust that he loves us just as much when we are in the worst of pain than when everything is going great. We often have this sort God-math we use without knowing it. We think
MY_SITUATION = Function( GOD's LOVE );
or
GOD's LOVE = Function ( MY SITUATION )
We fall into the false premise that if you are doing great then you are being BLESSED and if you are doing horrible then you are being CHASTISED (or DISCIPLINED) for some wrong. I must admit I have often had this wrong view of God too. We see fellow Christians running around trying to "figure out" what they had done wrong to deserve this. They often think "If I can just figure out what God is trying to teach me then God will take all this away because I learned my lesson". I have felt that way too, but it's wrong. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Our suffering may just be a consequence of living in a sin-filled world. There might not be any "lesson" at the end at all other than we are mortal
What we can all take away from our suffering is this: God's love doesn't change. When Job was going through all his misery God was not there sitting by waiting for Job to "get it". He loved Job through it all. God's grace was unchanging and Paul had to accept that this problem was not going to go away and that God loved him. He loves you too.
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