Perhaps it did keep Paul from becoming to prideful.
What a mystery! Paul’s thorn in the flesh. I’ve always thought is was pride …whatever the thorn was…that Paul may be found having not his own righteousness but the righteousness which comes from God in Christ. When I think of an irritating stake in the flesh …I think of something that keeps the flesh “irritated”
weak that the power of healing be of God and not of men.
Interesting to me is where Paul asked “where is the blessed Hope you spoke of? Willing to pluck even your own eyes out and give them to me?”… “now I’ve become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” My question is when Paul wasn’t an enemy and they were willing to pluck out their eyes for him…was he telling them a lie? Why the change at now …this behavior of “am I now become an enemy” because of truth and not a lie? What is Paul telling them that makes him now an enemy to them?
If I think of Paul’s thorn in the flesh
The words “unless I should be exalted above measure” I think of “who are kept by the power of God through Faith unto salvation…” what is “Faith unto Salvation” in relation to “a thorn given unto me” where God said “My strength is made perfect in weakness.”?
Faith …unto…Salvation to me describes: deliverance out from, of Gods appearance of deliverance by His saving Power… what ever Paul’s thorn was; to me it is helping because I also desperately right now feel like I have nothing left but weakness. I can relate to the Psalms; prayers of the afflicted who are overwhelmed and pour out their complaints before the Lord. Always, always crying for delivery. There has to come a time (I would think) when the tears are wiped away?
Faith unto a Hope of delivery unto Salvation …kept by the power of God “to be revealed at last” ….makes me think of Paul’s thorn “kept” him unless he be lifted above measure so that …instead… Faith unto Salvation. When God said three times He would not remove the thorn …does that mean God left Paul that way “with a thorn”?…or that God alone would “remove the thorn” …three times He said…that is to say God would “remove the flesh” “the foreskin of the heart” through “the circumcision of Christ Jesus”, Faith unto Salvation in Jesus Christ Alone. Where did Paul’s thorn go with the circumcision of Christ Jesus?
Gods strength is made perfect in weakness. “Though He (Jesus Christ) was crucified in weakness; He Lives by the Power of God.”
Wouldn’t that be the “blessed hope”? The “appearance of Jesus Christ” “the Revelation of Jesus Christ”? Why did Paul challenge “where is that blessed Hope you spoke of”? …”where has that blessed hope gone …where you would have given …to now you hate me?” To me it is Love. So foreign.
Is
when His body is weak it “edifies itself”
in the bond of Love which is Gods’ perfection made perfect (edified; strengthened) and in Love. as the word says of those who: Love His appearing and Hope and wait (watch) for it.
I’m depressed because I’m stuck at crying also: where is the blessed hope the church speaks of? Wheres the Deliverance …I’m afraid it is all just a fairytale. Something spoken of —sounding out something so much better and substantial (solid and stable to grab hold of) where I want to believe or have faith in weakness or thorns or sorrows …but I’m struggling to see Joy at all or the deliverance of faith unto Salvation. my greatest most depressing fear would be that God is fictional made up —or designed—by men with all their opinions and imaginations of so many differing versions of “God”. It makes me think of: let God be real and every man be a liar. I can relate to that because …right now to me… “let God be real” is everything. The only Hope there is….even if everything else is a lie, including what I believe or tell myself. If God be real … THAT makes depression seem like nothing …as in not ALL Hope has left…because there is still Joy in that He is True.
1 Peter 1:5-7