Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me– to keep me from exalting myself! 2 Corinthians 12:7

Often times “Christians” would ask , “Why does God keep allowing bad things to happen to me”? We read here that God allowed Satan to torment the Apostle Paul so he would keep himself humble. Remember Paul experienced a lot of amazing things during his ministry, he met Jesus face to face, God allowed miracles and healings to work through him, his life was spared many times by God

So a human experiencing these things can cause us to exalt ourselves pretty quickly. We see this a lot in ministry, people see Gods work and right away they start giving themselves the credit.

Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. 2 Corinthians 12:8

Now don’t misunderstand, Paul didn’t like this “Thorn in the side”. He pleaded with God to take away this torment. However Paul also had the Spiritual Maturity to understand this was for his own benefit. See when we look at things from a worldly temporary perspective this would see terrible. However when we look at this from an eternal perspective

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

God wants us to rely on him for everything! Yes so sometimes he needs to take things away for us to cling to him. As Paul learned the Grace of God is sufficient enough for us, we don’t need anything else. Through our weakness he makes us strong! To the world is sounds like a contradiction but this is what having faith and trusting God is really about! Amen!