His grace is enough for today.

What it meant then

In the last chapters of 2 Corinthians, Paul answers rivals in Corinth who boasted of their credentials and looked down on him (10:10; 11:5). Unwillingly, he “boasts” too, but of beatings, shipwrecks and sleepless nights (11:23–29), and then of a vision fourteen years earlier, when he was caught up to paradise (12:1–4). Then he tells of a “thorn in my flesh.” He never says what it was; illness, eye trouble and constant opposition have all been suggested. Three times he asked the Lord to take it away. The answer was not removal but grace.

For today

Paul prayed the way you would. Three times he asked for the thorn to go, and asking three times is not a lack of faith; it is a man who meant it. The answer was no. Not “not yet,” not “try harder,” but a different gift: “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Be careful about what this passage does not say. It does not say pain is good, or that you should pretend to enjoy it, or that asking for healing is wrong. Paul asked. It says something harder and better: Christ’s power rests on people who are still weak, not only on people who have been fixed. Paul did not hide the thorn; he chose to “boast” of it, because that was where Christ’s strength showed.

Maybe you have a thorn that has outlasted your prayers: a body that will not heal, a temper you keep losing, a sorrow that comes back every evening. You may keep asking. But today you can also stop waiting to be strong before you live. Grace is given for this day, with the thorn still there.