Week 48 - Day 1

* As we near the end of the year, the next few weeks will have some 5-day weeks instead of 6 so there will be extra time for personal reflection, reviewing, or catching up.  If there is something you'd like to share for the blog - a reflection on scripture or just something God has shown you through reading the Bible this year - I'd love to include some of these!  Email me at ejmushlock@gmail.com *

2 Corinthians 11-13

*Click here to read this passage:

2 Corinthians 11-13 YouVersion(NIV)

Have you ever had a prayer that you prayed over and over and God didn’t answer it in the way you wanted?  Or maybe He eventually answered it but after years of waiting?  Sometimes God does answer a prayer with a ‘no,’ and that ‘no’ may or may not be temporary.  Here in 2 Corinthians 12 we find out that Paul had this experience.  It says he had a “thorn in his flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment” him.  We don’t know for sure what this “thorn in the flesh” was for Paul, but we know he pleaded for the Lord to take it away.

God didn’t answer that prayer in the way Paul was asking.  But God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Sometimes God allows things that weaken us, thorns in our flesh, so that He can display His power and goodness.  As He shows us continuously throughout the entire Bible, He wants us to rely on Him and to completely trust Him.  He gives us everything we need.

Even though Paul had many hardships (just read the list of stuff he went through in chapter 11!) he says, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

And here are a few more words from Paul to think on today from Philippians 4: “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”