My Grace Is Sufficient: Understanding 2 Corinthians 12:9
This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible and one of the least read in context. People put "my grace is sufficient" on mugs and phone screens without ever asking what Paul was actually asking God for, or what God's answer cost him to accept. The passage is short, ten verses, but it's dense, and Paul is doing something in it that most of us never do: boasting about the thing that humiliated him. Read slowly. This one rewards it. Quick answer In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul describes a "thorn in the flesh" he begged God three times to remove. God didn't remove it. Instead God told him His grace was sufficient, enough, ongoing, not running out, and that His power reaches its full effect precisely in human weakness, not despite it. Paul's response wasn't resignation; he chose to boast in his weaknesses because that's where Christ's power was visibly at work. The passage doesn't promise your thorn will go. It promises that God...