2 Corinthians 12:8 (NIV)
*Have you ever been in a place where God gave you something you didn’t ask for? Sometimes the very things God gives to you can feel like thorns rather than blessings. Even when we don’t ask God for things, he still gives us things to use as tools for development. Isn’t it amazing the very thing you wish God would take away, is the very thing that has allowed you to be strong today. Some of the pain you didn’t ask for taught you some things you wouldn’t have learned without it. Thorns are personal and you don’t have time to worry about someone else’s thorns, because you have your own thorns to worry about. You have some moments when you want to say somethings you shouldn’t say, because of the thorns God has given to you. Because thorns are personal you can’t always find solutions, remedies, or support for how to live with it from people who are connected to you. Some thorns you must deal with, with just you, the thorn, and God. We’ve gotten to a place where we have stopped relying on the sufficiency of Christ. One of the reasons God allows thorns in our life, is to draw us closer to Him. If you didn’t have the thorn, would you have prayed three times. Some of us only pray when thorns show up.
*Thorns are painful. Sometimes with some hits the only thing we can do is just take it. Sometimes God will allow you to get hit and the only thing you can do is take it. You want to fight back, you want to swing back, but God tells you no, just take it. You may have had some conversations with God, where you asked God if you’ve been doing what he said do, and saying what he wants you to say, why now? You’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing, and here comes a hit, and you ask God why does he keep allowing you to get hit? Even though we think we are in right standing, that’s the best time to take a hit. If you’re already in alignment it's a good time to take a hit, because the only thing it can do to you is get you more in alignment. Sometimes you have to be hit when you find yourself in good places, because the Lord wants to remind you, even though you’re in a good place there’s still a better place you could be. We become comfortable when we’re in a good place, but God wants us in a place where we are constantly seeking to go deeper in our faith, walk, and in our relationship with Him, so he constantly keeps sending more and more thorns. We must make thorns normal. If you’re not being attacked, then you’re not a threat. That’s why things like your health, your mental stability, and emotions are all over the place, because the enemy sees what God is about do in and through you, and he’s seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). He’s trying to find ways to knock you out of alignment.
*God gives us unwanted responses, because he wants us to understand that even when he calls you to live with it, he always gives you provision in dealing with it. You know you’re strong in your walk with Christ, when you constantly pray for God to do something, and His answer to you is not what you want, and you don’t go back to Him praying about the same thing. If God has already given you an answer stop wasting your time praying about what God already gave you a benediction about. The problem is we think we can manipulate the mind of God, and we think that because we have manipulated the mind of people. You didn’t get the response you wanted but God gave you the response you needed.
*You’re looking at the thorn the wrong way, you’re looking at it with the wrong lens. Thorns come to get us to a place where we stop operating in our own power and operate in the power of Christ. The reason things aren’t working is because you keep trying to do things in your own strength. You will continue to get the unwanted responses as long as you keep trying to do it in your abilities. We’re called to trust in the Lord with all our heart, lean not to our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6). We have to lean on the power and sufficiency of the one who is able. You can’t heal yourself so stop trying but give it to the one who is able to heal you. You can’t fix what’s wrong and the more you keep trying to fix it the worse it gets, because you don’t have the power. If you had the power, then there would be no need for God.
