“And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may tabernacle upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
Paul had a thorn in the flesh. It was a chronic problem that caused him to feel weak. He asked the Lord three times to remove it, but the Lord did not remove it. The Lord answered him instead with His grace and His strength. When Paul realized that God was using an environment to put a demand upon his flesh that was beyond his natural strength, he completely changed his attitude toward his thorn in the flesh. He said, “Most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may tabernacle upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” In other words, Paul was saying, “When I am weak, I allow my weakness to escort me to Christ! It is in my weakness that He tabernacles over me and I draw from Him. Instead of my weakness becoming a frustration to my experience of the Lord, it has become a path to lead me to the One who supplies me continuously with His grace.”
Paul learned this through his experience of the demands in his environment. So none of us should allow any environments to embitter us. Instead they should sweeten us, because they bring us so much God. In all the demands, God is teaching us one lesson — “I do not want you to live by your own life anymore. I am simply driving you out of yourself into Myself so that I can be your all in all!” Brothers and sisters, there are hundreds of hallelujahs within us as we appreciate the fact that all the demands in our lives are one escort after another, lined up, to lead us continuously to the allsufficient Christ!