A common question – why, or why not, does God do something? Why does God not end my suffering, why does God not heal her cancer? Why does God allow him to have business success? Why does God allow poverty to continue? Coming before the blessed sacrament day in and day praying – why does God not answer them way I think he should? Are not my requests reasonable? God is all powerful – he is capable to answering my prayers? Why is he not?
A challenge we all run into in the Christian life … and St Paul is no exception. St Paul is a man who knows the hard part of the Christian life – he led several highly successful missionary trips around the Mediterranean, and during these trips he has been beaten, stoned, whipped, shipwrecked - had sleepless nights out in the cold while hungry and thirsty – all in service to Christ. He lived out his faith in Christ in dramatic fashion. He also had a deep life of prayer – and has been given great gifts in this life of prayer, given revelations by God – and caught up in mystical visions of heaven and a sight of paradise – clearly a man of great faith and knowledgeable in spiritual things. He seems to be someone who might understand how God sees things.
And St Paul comes to God in prayer with a simple, and seemingly very reasonable request – to be freed from “ a thorn in the flesh.” While we do not know exactly what this thorn in the flesh is, it is clear that it is something that is very troublesome and in the way of what St Paul is trying to do. It seems so clear that God should remove whatever challenge St Paul is running into, would not that lead to St Paul, already such an effective missionary for the gospel, to be even more effective?
But despite St Paul begging God three times for this thorn to be removed, God does not remove the thorn. – For despite St Paul’s great spiritual life, St Paul at first does not see the situation as God sees it. What St Paul sees as block to being as effective as he could be, God sees the thorn as something helpful to reminded St Paul that “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness”
“power is made perfect in weakness” –If that is how God sees things, it is certainly different than how we normally see things, and, at least at first does not seems make sense. – and St Paul may not have thought it made much sense at first either, he at first did not like this answer –and begged God two more times for the thorn to be removed. But, as counter to how it is common to look at things, this is how God saved the world. Jesus did not come and conquer the world through strength, his power was made perfect in weakness on the cross, through his death a resurrection. This is where our salvation comes from.
This is also how St Paul had such missionary success. Paul’s success did not come from him being a great speaker, he was not. And while he wrote some – there was no printing press or USPS to send out large numbers of pamphlets. The missionary success was not Paul’s but Christ working in Paul. The success was in the example of Paul being beaten, stoned, whipped, shipwrecked – Showing the love of Christ. Success following the example of Christ.
But there was a danger in the missionary success for St Paul – the danger of pride – That He might to think that he achieved the success in his skill and power, not God. That it was him, not Christ dwelling in him. And that is what God saw the led him to leave the thorn. So that St Paul would, in his weakness allow the power of Christ to dwell in him – as he came eventual to understand “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” – and as long as St Paul keeps that in mind, the missionary work will have a power behind it far more powerful than the man, St Paul, as it is about Christ, not St Paul. This part of God sees the situation, rather different then we might normally see it. But God sees different that we do. “power is made perfect weakness.”
And so it continues today - And what of our prayers and requests to God? Surely it seems to makes sense for God to end suffering, or cure her cancer – those are not good things, –and most situations we don’t know why God allows it – that will have to wait until we ask God in heaven – But For all of our reasonable solutions and arguments, As with the example of the thorn in the flesh that St Paul had, we do not see as God sees, and the reasons he might do as he does. We struggle to see that “power is made perfect weakness,” instead trying to avoid weakness. but It is through weakness and trusting in that we let Christ live in us, that Christ saves us. When we do not the answer we want to our prayers, what we think is reasonable from God, pause a moment and knowing that God does not see as we see, ask How might God see this?