Pastor Taylor Shippy - 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
According to Paul, apostles - those who are 'sent out' - are prone to accumulate thorns as they labor in the fields doing the Lord’s work. Thorns that are annoying and painful and also often reveal our weaknesses and shortcomings. It’s almost unavoidable. We attract them. They get stuck to us, and we often can’t get them off. But genuine apostles anticipate this… They anticipate insults, hardships, persecutions, difficulties… all the holding to the promise of ‘leaning on the everlasting arms’ of God’s grace. Paul offers a sobering reminder that in the thick of ministry we have a surplus of grace available to us. Perhaps the thorns we experience from being ‘sent out’ may not be obstacles to the Lord’s work but instead gateways into becoming the apostles God wants us to be?
