{"id":7422,"date":"2021-07-22T14:53:28","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T21:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/?p=7422"},"modified":"2021-07-22T14:53:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T21:53:28","slug":"thoughtful-thursday-thorns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/2021\/07\/22\/thoughtful-thursday-thorns\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughtful Thursday: Thorns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week I was talking with a friend who was expressing frustration about battling a recurring illness which made me think of Paul\u2019s recurring \u201cthorn\u201d in his flesh. I did a little digging around and found that there are several theories about what Paul\u2019s \u201cthorn\u201d was. Some say it was a person, others say it was his vision and others think it was a sin that he was fighting. I came to the conclusion that it doesn\u2019t really matter what the issue was. What matters it that even Paul had struggles, and though God would not remove it, He did promise to carry Paul through it, using his weakness to make more room for Christ to dwell in him, and that was good enough for Paul.<\/p>\n

In a sermon<\/a> by John Piper, Piper stated that \u201cGod uses Satan to defeat the plans of Satan\u201d and that Satan\u2019s \u201cthorns\u201d should be expected by those who God is perfecting. If you are struggling with a \u201cthorn\u201d in your life, consider that rather than being absent from the situation, God is likely using the circumstance to refine you and to draw you closer to Him. I know, easier said than done, but Paul\u2019s president gives me hope. Meditate on the verses below and see if they don\u2019t give you a boost of hope too.<\/p>\n

2 Corinthians 12: 7b-10
\nTherefore, to keep\u00a0me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.\u00a0Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me,\u00a0<\/span>but he said to me, \u201cMy grace is sufficient for you, for power\u00a0is made perfect in weakness.\u201d So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.\u00a0<\/span>Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.<\/span><\/p>\n

Romans 8:28
\nWe know that all things work together for good\u00a0for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week I was talking with a friend who was expressing frustration about battling a recurring illness which made me think of Paul\u2019s recurring \u201cthorn\u201d in his flesh. I did a little digging around and found that there are several theories about what Paul\u2019s \u201cthorn\u201d was. Some say it was a person, others say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7309,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[195,59,292,113,294],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adults","category-church-news","category-faith","category-newsletters","category-thoughtful-thursday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7423,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions\/7423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}