As For Thorns……. – A Glimpse Into A Pastor’s Heart (II Corinthians 12:1-13)
The year was 1997. I was sitting alone in my office. In walks a trucker from Oklahoma. He had parked his rig in the church parking lot. He asked, “I see you have a gymnasium. If it has a shower, I could sure use one!”
After his shower, he came back to my office. “This church is without a pastor, isn’t it?”
Me: Yes, how do you know that?
Him: God told me while I was taking a shower!
Me: (look of skepticism)
Him: I have a question for you, why are you afraid of him?
Me: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Him: Why don’t you stop the baloney so we can have a conversation?
Me: He chews up pastors and spits them out like hamburger!
Him: Ok, now we can have a conversation!
For the next hour, this trucker read my pedigree and laid out the next 10 years of my life – in detail. I thought he was an angel sent from God. (He was!) He was a prophet sent to prepare me for what was about to happen. After he left town, I called his cell phone number, just to make sure he was human. He was. We have kept in contact down through the years. Last time we talked, he was a missionary in Mexico.
I am amazed at how many times the Lord has given me a heads-up regarding situations I was about to walk into. It has happened so many times, I cannot count them. Often, I have been drawn to Amos 3:7, “The Lord will do nothing until He first reveals it to his servants and prophets.” I believe it’s a blessing God gives to his anointed leaders. It’s something that I privately treasure. Most days are mundane, but when it happens, it is undeniably supernatural.
PERHAPS THE GREATEST THORN IN MY FLESH HAS BEEN THE FACT THAT I HAVE NEVER PASTORED MY OWN CHURCH.
In margins of my Bible, I have written, “Visions to Thorns. Exaltation to Humiliation. Dreams to Depression. Miraculous to Messy. Glory to Gory.
Once again, Charles Swindoll, in his Commentary of Second Corinthians, pages 477-478, offers some important questions we should ask ourselves when moving from “Glory to Gory!”
1. Is my image a little too important to me?
2. Am I falling into the trap of keeping score?
3. Do I flatter other people for personal advantage?
As for Thorns…. (Second Corinthians 12:7-10 Message Bible)
The Apostle Paul, in his most transparent letter to the Corinthians, says these words:
7-10 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own when you are weak.
Paul continues, “Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving through my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.”
Just another “Glimpse Into A Pastor’s Heart.”
