Thorn in Your Side

Series on “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
2 Corinthians 12:1-10 

[Many years ago, there used to be articles in the Reader’s Digest titled “I am Joe’s ___” with the blank being filled with a body part or organ. Over the years, I’ve written down verses that are meaningful to me on 3x5 cards. In this series we’ll be looking at some of my favorite verses. In other words, “I am Joe’s Favorite Verses”.]

  

My best friend in high school was everything that I wanted to be but wasn’t. He was confident; could talk easily with girls; and was good at sports. In fact, some classmates thought he was a braggart. But for me, I wanted to be just like him.

 

In some ways, he was a mentor to me. One Saturday night we were at my house, when I must have told him that I didn’t know how to dance. The next thing that I knew I’d put a slow song on the record player and my best friend was dancing with me while giving me instructions. It must have looked strangely funny.

 

The world tells us that if you are weak, then you’ll get run over; people will take advantage of you; you won’t get anywhere in the world. But God has a different set of values. He doesn’t work that way.

 

Throughout the Bible, you can see how God works in people’s lives who are down and out; people with character flaws; people with weaknesses. Moses who was a murderer; Gideon who was hiding in a winepress; Rahab who was a prostitute; Peter who denied Christ – played major roles in God’s plan of redemption.

 

In the final four chapters of his letter to Corinth, Paul is defending himself against some men who have infiltrated the church. They claimed to be apostles and that Paul was not. Being an apostle meant that you were sent, or commissioned, by Jesus just like the original apostles who had walked “in the dust of the rabbi”.

 

When these men claimed that Paul wasn’t an apostle, they were attacking not only the things that he wrote and said, but also his character. It was critical for Paul to defend himself, not because he needed the title of “Apostle”, but to validate who he was and what he said.

 

With no other choice, Paul defended his ministry in many different ways, including bragging about all the suffering he had gone through by following Jesus. But he also bragged about the visions and revelations from the Lord that he’d had.

 

² I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows.          NLT

 

Paul was likely a type A personality – very driven. It would’ve been easy for him to do everything that God had called him to do, but to do it on his own… without God. He had the skills, the motivation and the confidence to do it.

 

Therefore, God gave him a thorn in the flesh – a weakness if you will. That thorn kept Paul humble, but it also enabled him to trust the Lord and live by His power. When Paul begged the Lord three times to take it away, here is His response.

 

⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.           NIV

 

This is Good News for a teenage boy who lacked confidence. But it’s also Good News for anyone at any age who is painfully aware of the thorn in your side. Whatever your thorn might be, God’s strength “is made perfect” in your weakness.

 

Copyright 2026 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

A Regular Joe

A series on the Judges of Israel
 – Ehud from the tribe of Benjamin
(Click on the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 3:12-30 

[The book of Judges is a roller coaster ride. It’s about the history of Israel following their entry into the Promised Land. Unfortunately, Israel went through cycles of rejecting God and then repenting. Each time, the Lord saved them by raising up a leader who was called a judge. In this series, we will be looking at some of these judges to learn about God’s character as well as our own.]

 

"Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! 

Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's SUPERMAN!!!

 

This was the introduction for every episode of the TV series “Adventures of Superman”. What made it more amazing was that Superman in real life was a mild mannered reporter who wore glasses. But, when Clark Kent heard about a crisis, he stepped into a telephone booth and emerged as Superman ready for action!

 

The story from this passage in Judges opens with Israel doing evil in the sight of the Lord. Therefore, the Lord gave Eglon, king of Moab, control over Israel. As a result, Israel was oppressed by Eglon for eighteen years.

 

Because of this, the Israelites cried out to God for help. So the Lord raised a rescuer by the name of Ehud, a left-handed man. In the meantime, the Israelites sent Ehud, along with others, to take their annual tribute to Eglon.

 

However, what the Israelites didn’t know was that Ehud had his own plans. He had made a double edged dagger which he strategically strapped to his right thigh hiding it under his clothes.

 

After delivering the tribute to Eglon and leaving, Ehud circled back without the others. He told Eglon that he had a secret message for him from God. Once all the servants were out of the room, Ehud quickly grabbed his dagger with his left hand and thrust it deep into the king’s belly killing him.

 

He then fled the city going to the hill country of Ephraim where Ehud sounded a call to arms for Israelites to follow him in fighting the Moabites. They killed ten thousand of their able-bodied warriors. Consequently, Moab was subject to Israel for eighty years.

 

Like Clark Kent, Ehud was just a “regular Joe”. In fact, in that culture being left handed was considered a weakness. Therefore, Eglon would not have expected an attack from his left hand. But God had raised up a deliverer by using Ehud’s weakness to show the Lord’s strength.

 

Paul wrote about this paradox of strength through weakness in his second letter to the Corinthian believers.

 

⁹ But God said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.    ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.           NIV

 

When you think about it, what Ehud did was pretty remarkable. He acted decisively without anybody to back him up. He was motivated because God had raised him up as Israel’s deliverer. And even though being left handed was considered a liability, he turned it into an asset.

 

As you can see one person, even a “regular Joe”, can make a difference.

 

Copyright 2024 Joseph B Williams

Feel free to share this blog with others.

www.lifelinebasketball.blogspot.com

 

 

 

Two Sides of the Same Coin

 Continuing a Series on “Living by Faith”
 (Use the link below to read the verses.)
Judges 14:1-20; Hebrews 11:32

[Hebrews 11 is a recounting of the Heroes of the Faith. Each person is commended for living “by faith”. Following these commendations we read, “Therefore, because you are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses… throw off sin; run with perseverance; fix your eyes on Jesus”. In other words, continue to live “by faith”.]

 

There’s an old saying that goes “two sides of the same coin”. It’s a short way of saying that even though heads and tails are totally different, they’re a part of one in the same coin. This can also be a metaphor of our life.

 

For instance, growing up, I knew that my Dad loved me; I just couldn’t feel it. He wasn’t good at showing his affection or verbalizing his love. He also didn’t appear to have time for me; to play catch or shoot baskets. And when he was angry with me, it felt like I had disappointed him to the point that he could never love me.

 

As a young adult, that perception of not feeling loved by my Dad, was a major motivation for leading me into a twenty-five year career in urban youth ministry. On one side of the coin, was the feeling of not being loved by my earthly Father. On the other side, was my desire to show the love of my Heavenly Father. Two sides of the same coin.

 

The Lord has a way of doing the same thing; of taking the duality of an ordinary person to do something extraordinary. Take Samson for instance. Despite all of his shortcomings, failures and weaknesses, he was a part of the Lord’s plan. In Judges 14, Samson has set his eyes and desires on a Philistine woman, much to the consternation of his parents.

 

³ His father and mother objected. “Isn’t there even one woman in our tribe or among all the Israelites you could marry?” they asked. “Why must you go to the pagan Philistines to find a wife?” But Samson told his father, “Get her for me! She looks good to me.” ⁴ His father and mother didn’t realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time.    NLT

 

The Lord seems to revel in taking a person with a significant weakness, and doing something amazing. This is a pattern throughout Scripture! While the world steps on weakness, making it shameful; the Lord holds it up, making it a tool of sanctification and redemption.

 

Perhaps Paul said it best in 2 Corinthians 12.

 

⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.          NIV

 

…Two sides of the same coin.