To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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. 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. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NIV).

If you’re anything like me you’ve lived long enough for life to have thrown you a few lemons! The Apostle Paul calls them a “thorn in the flesh.” I certainly can’t claim to have endured anything as severe as he did, but some of my experiences sure seem to be more painful than just a thorn! I have come to learn that my attitude toward them and what I do with those experiences makes the difference. Let me illustrate:

Around the turn of the century a young man named Ole took his girlfriend on a summer outing. They took a picnic lunch out to a picturesque island in the middle of a small lake. She wore a long dress with about a dozen petticoats. He was dressed in a suit with a high collar. Ole rowed them out to the island, dragged the boat on to the shore, and spread their picnic supplies beneath a shady tree. So hypnotized was he by her beauty that he hardly noticed the hot sun and perspiration on his brow. Softly she whispered to him, “Ole, you forgot the ice cream.” Ole pulled the boat back to the water and rowed to shore. He found a grocery store nearby, bought the ice cream, and rowed back to the island. She batted long eyelashes over deep blue eyes and purred, “Ole, you forgot the chocolate syrup.” Ole got back into the boat and returned to the store for syrup. As he rowed back toward the island, suddenly he stopped. He sat there in the boat the rest of the afternoon, fascinated by an idea. By the end of that afternoon, Ole had invented the outboard motor. Oh, I nearly forgot… Ole’s last name was Evinrude! And by the way, Ole later married the girl who waited so long on the island.

As the old saying goes, when life presents you with a lemon, turn it into lemonade! For the Apostle Paul his "thorn in the flesh" (whatever it was) was used by God to keep him humble and effective in his work for the Lord. For me personally (as I've shared before), it was when I felt God put me on the shelf that I turned to writing Morning Devotionals. I'm still writing them over ten years later! God has used them in many ways to speak to the hearts of people in many ways. I am humbled and grateful for this part of my ministry now.