Months ago I prayed, asking, if not begging, God to intervene. I wasn’t the only one praying, you probably were too as it seemed everyone was “all hands on deck” in prayer. Our co-worker and friend, Amy, suffered a massive heart-attack and the moment she was taken to SOMC her outlook was without hope. But we prayed. When she was life-flighted to Columbus, we prayed. When she was taken into surgery, we prayed. When the doctors needed to perform more surgery, we prayed again. Though each step taken looked bleak, we prayed. We prayed until God came through to heal Amy from her wounds. We shouted on the mountains, “God cured Amy!” Since that day I haven’t stopped thanking God for his healing power. We believe in prayer, because we believe God listens to our prayer. We believe in prayer because we believe God acts on our prayers.
About the time we were praying for Amy, Cile and I were praying for a young man who, in a freak accident, suffered a concussion. He was on his skateboard engaging with neighborhood children and performing moves he’s made his entire life. Except this time he wiped out and hit his head. He hit his head hard. His brain swelled and was rushed to the hospital. We prayed for him because his wife needed her husband, and his small children needed their daddy. Since the accident Cile and I have prayed, but the man has not been healed. Not totally. We still believe in prayer, because we believe God listens to our prayers. We believe in prayer because we believe God acts on our prayers. But sometimes I wish, oh how I wish, God always answered my prayers like he answered the ones for Amy.
Praying is hard. Praying is the temporary stepping into the eternal. Mind blowing, isn’t it? Finding the right words is a challenge in and of itself, but having the faith to believe the words spoken? Yea hard. Believing the spoken words actually reaches the throne room of God is a tall order, especially when it feels like God’s not listening, or when he does, he says, “No.” They say “Prayer is the key to heaven, but its faith that unlocks the door.” And there may be some truth to it, but let’s be honest, beyond all the clichés, prayer is hard.
If prayer is humanity engaging the Divine, then there is a sense of wonder to the moment, a wonder that needs to be left unexplored but simply experienced. For instance, I know God listens to our prayers. I know God acts from prayer. I do not know how or why God chooses to respond the way he does with specific prayers. Sometimes he says yes. Sometimes he says no. And sometimes, I’m just not sure what is going on either in heaven or on earth. And that is ok too, because we aren’t supposed to know all things. Nor should we trivialize life and God with trite answers. Instead, we sit in wonder of the One who does know all things and in whom we’ve placed our trust.
Paul found himself at the cross roads of prayer. The one prayer path he wanted to walk led him to healing. The other path led to God denying his request for healing. Here is where he found himself. Paul was asking, but God was denying. Three times Paul asked, petitioned, and begged God to heal him. But God said no, wrapping his denial in grace.
God said “no” to Paul,
even though he was an apostle of Christ;
God said “no” to Paul,
even though Paul felt like he was being sliced and diced.
God said “no” to Paul,
as if the apostle was a normal person like you and me;
God said “no” to Paul,
because God spread forth his grace, which was always free.
God said “no” to Paul,
in hopes that the apostle would lean on God’s strength, and not his own;
God said “no” to Paul,
for the apostle did not have the strength to face his role alone.
God said “no” to Paul,
even though the apostle begged God to remove the thorn not once or twice, but
thrice;
God said “no” to Paul,
just like God had to say “no” three times to his own Son, the Christ.
God said “no” to Paul,
because sometimes God must set some boundaries,
even when the apostle finds the answer profoundly unease.
What drove Paul to his knees was the aftermath of a vision and revelation. In fact, he uses the plural which leads us to believe the apostle experienced more than one vision and revelation (2 Cor. 12:1). The description of what he saw or heard was inexpressible. He had no words and admits that he cannot explain what exactly happened. Was it an inner body experience or did he step out of himself, he didn’t know. What he knew was that he was taken to heaven where he saw and heard things he never should have witnessed.
If the song says, “I can only imagine,” I’m here to tell you that whatever Paul experienced is beyond our ability to comprehend. There are no words. What is more, the encounter left Paul the walking wounded. As much as Paul does not reveal to us what he experienced in heaven, he also fails to explain his wounded-ness. We don’ know what Paul struggled with, but it’s safe to say the Corinthians did because they had known Paul face-to-face. What is very clear is the link between what Paul experienced to what he has had to endure. But maybe the best way to understand Paul is to step back and hear the entire argument.
Paul has been backed into a corner by a group who have self-promoted themselves and boasted about a slew of qualities. One of them may be their experience with visions and revelations. Paul does everything he can to avoid such an argument, but alas he chooses to step into the ring and go mono-emono with the antagonists.* Only he chooses to change the conditions of the debate.
First, he speaks in the third person. Speaking as if he knows someone who experienced the visions and revelations, Paul deflects some of the attention that is on him. His decision to boast in the third person leads him to pivot at 12:7 to begin speaking in the first person. So Paul knew a man “caught up into heaven,” but to keep himself humble Paul is given a “thorn in the flesh.” Thus, the man Paul knew who was caught up into heaven and then given the thorn in the flesh, was Paul himself.
Secondly, Paul is wounded from his experiences, to which he never does quite recover. To counter Paul’s remarkable experiences, God gave him a thorn to inflict enough discomfort in Paul to keep him grounded. God did not want Paul’s experience to go to his head and produce a prideful, haughty spirit. To keep him humble, God allowed a messenger from Satan to torment his apostle. Paul asked for healing, while God provided humility.
I can see Paul now going to God in prayer. I can hear his words form into arguments as to why this “thorn in the flesh” needs removed. It was like an anchor dragging him through the sand. He can do more. He can be more effective. He can get more accomplished. The “thorn” is holding him back from productivity and effectiveness. He can go farther and longer if only this “thorn” was removed. I feel like I understand Paul, as God has told me “no” so many times before.
For fifteen years I prayed that God would lift the black cloud of depression from me. The darkness was often heavy and took me to deep black holes where hope’s light never pieced. I prayed to God to redeem me, to rescue me, and to release me from my burden. God never answered me, while I did take comfort in the answer to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness” (12:9).
About the fifteenth year, with the “no’s” piled as high as the Empire State Building, I began to change my prayer request. Instead of removing my own thorn, I asked God to give me the strength to endure depression. I asked him for a power outside of myself to navigate through the darkness so that I may find the light. Slowly. Little by little. I kept praying and moving forward. While I’ve never completely exited the darkness, I’ve come a long way. God did say “no” to one prayer, but in doing so, he said “yes” to something else. That something else was his grace. A grace to keep moving forward despite the baggage I carried. And ultimately, isn’t God’s grace enough?
We believe in prayer, because we believe God listens to our prayers. We believe in prayer because we believe God acts on our prayers. We believe in prayer because we believe in God. We believe in prayer even when God says “no,” for the times he does say “no,” God always gives his grace. Always.
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)
*Technically, Paul does not take on the antagonists directly. Paul argues and debates with his church members, not the outside influencers who have led them astray.