Pride Leads To Thorns In The Flesh!

“Look up when you encounter slight afflictions because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me – to keep me from exalting myself!” (2 Corinthians 12:7)

Hey Gang: Did you ever have a thorn in your side that continued to aggravate you to the point you were ready to take serious and immediate action to rid your life of it?

That is a perfect description of the aggravation I feel as I look out my window and see my tractor sitting in the middle of the drive way dead to the world. I have tried everything known to man and few things not known to man to fix it including laying hands on it and putting it in the Lord’s hands, but I think He is trying to teach me that patience comes in different forms.

Frustrated yes, but in reading the Word I find many of the pillars of the faith also found themselves in frustrating positions. When it really gets bad I turn to Romans 7 and read Paul’s words, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the will is present in me, but the doing of the good is not, for the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want” (vs. 18-19).

Does that give me an excuse for blowing my top and getting into some sort of pity party? – No. Paul confessed he did not always do things that brought honor and glory to His Savior, but he also knew that it was not his heart's desire to lose his ‘cool’. Notice verse 20, “But I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me”.

Gang it is time to practice what I preach. When you are over sixty years old (meaning the tractor) and have worked hard all your life pulling a plow and such things, one might expect there will be days when it just cannot muster enough strength to add one more day of toil to its resume.

Sooo, young folks, I go with Jesus' words in my heart and mind, “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you, Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful” (John 14:27).

Blessings

Gramps