Paul: A Man of Grace and Grit (Great Lives from God's Word)

by Charles R. Swindoll

You may be surprised to know that there are times when pain comes as part of God’s sovereign plan to prepare us as useful servants. He knows what is best for us in light of what He’s doing in us.

UNDERSTANDING SUFFERING FROM GOD’S PERSPECTIVE

Our groans express both present pain and future longing. Some Christians, however, grin too much (they seem to have no place in their theology for pain) and groan too little.1

Saul of Tarsus.

day rarely passed in his Christian life when he didn’t face intense pain, suffering, and/or pressure—almost all of which were related to the harshness of life and the hardships of ministry. Thankfully, he doesn’t keep those experiences to himself. He bares his soul and lets the unedited truth flow.

AN OPEN WINDOW INTO AN APO...

You know what that means? Specific pain enables us to comfort others specifically.

A little later, Saul gets even more specific. He writes,

we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively,

beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life” (1:8). How about that? Saul—the man God used so mightily—despaired of life. Did you know that there was a time (possibly several times) when he suffered such a depth of depression that he n...

God held him together. He confesses, “Indeed we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead” (v. 9). “In my despairing of life,” says the apostle, “I learned to trust, and God showed me His remarkable power—the same power He used to raise H...

Can you hear the groaning?

The man is telling us he developed his theology of pain in the awful crucible of suffering. He knew first-hand what it meant to be misunderstood, mistreated, forsaken, forgotten, abused, maligned, shipwrecked, attacked, starving, imprisoned, and left for dead.

despite all of that suffering, he chose not to boast in his remarkable grit, or in his ability to face enormous odds with undaunted courage, or in his physical stamina and emotional stability. He testifies to none of that. Rather, he confesses, “If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains t...

Saul.

had learned to glory in suffering, without retaining in his soul an ounce of blame or bitterness toward the Lord. How could he do that? With all of the abuse, the defection of friends, the persecution from the synagogue leaders, why didn’t he retaliate? I believe the answer to that lies in the meaning and circumstances surrounding a remarkable vision, which the humble apostle describes in this same letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12. Let’s take a closer look at that amazing scene.

THE MAN WHO SAW...

Paul is in the process of passionately defending his autho...

As a part of his defense, he includes a description of supernatural revelations he received from the throne room of heaven, which he identifies as Paradise.

Though mostly shrouded in mystery, that passage is one of the most remarkable in all of Scripture. Paul realizes he can’t explain everything, yet he doesn’t hold back the truth. Rather than trying to explain the unexplainable, he simply admits, “I don’t know.”

Let me simplify all that happened by suggesting five observations about this particularly vulnerable confession by the apostle.

1. He is writing about himself.

2. He is certain of his location, but he is uncertain of his orientation.

Somehow he was transported far beyond the conscious limitations of space and

matter and time, and escorted directly into the presence of the Lord.

3. The experience happened to h...

He suddenly found himself in God’s third-heaven abode: Paradise.

4. What he heard and witnessed, mere words could not express.

Not only did he get it; the message he received fortified him for future service amid the most intense periods of suffering. This supernatural experience was part ...

What would be the most natural human response to experiencing such phenomenal ecstasy? In one word, pride.

God understands the peril of such spiritual pride.

in His grace, He solved the pride problem for Saul in the form of a painful affliction, which he called a “thorn in the flesh.”

THE THORN THAT WOULDN’T GO AWAY

Saul accepted his heaven-sent affliction with the same humility with which he received the vision from the Lord.

After the glory came the groaning. On the heels of supernatural privilege came physical throbbing pain. Following the exalted heavenly revelations came humiliating and agonizing earthly suffering. It was an agony which would accompany him the rest of his life.

Now, what was that thorn?

a series of spiritual te...

carnal tempt...

relentless opposition and p...

Physical deformity. Epilepsy. Migraines. Chronic eye trouble. A hunchback. Recurring bouts with malaria and its a...

truth is, we don...

The man who endured it calls it a “messenger of Satan.”

enemy hoped to use it to cause the apostle to defect or to retreat from his calling. God used it to keep the gifted servant on his knees.

While Satan punched and pounded the apostle’s resolve, the Lord’s purpose was to humble him, to keep him from exalting himself. Pride doesn’t reside in the hearts of the broken, the split-apart, the wounded, the anguished of soul.

“Pain plants the flag of reality in the fortress of a rebel heart.”

I’m not qualified to give you the intimate details of how Saul’s thorn affected him. However, he does confess that he begged the Lord on three separate occasions to remove it from him (v. 8

The world needs more followers of Christ who embrace pain and hardship rather than deny it. How helpful for us to see all this as God’s plan to keep us humble.

That is precisely what happened as Saul turned again and again to his Lord. God gave an answer he never expected.

A GRACE THAT WON’T LET GO

“No” was God’s “final answer” to his prayer for deliverance from suffering.