No one is immune from having “thistles in their garden” for even the Apostle Paul had a thorn to deal with.


2 Corinthians 12:6-10


If you spend much time on Social Media, you probably think that everybody else lives in Lake Wobegon.

Huh?

Yeah, Lake Wobegon.

Where is that?” you might ask. Or maybe you’re asking, “What is that?”

First of all, if you’re asking one of those two questions, you’re revealing your youthful age. For the rest of us, we know Lake Wobegon as the fictitious town that Garrison Keillor made famous on his Prairie Home Companion weekly radio show. As he would famously say, it’s a place where “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

Sounds good to me. Let’s pack our bags.

Whoa now! Hang on a second… Before you take all that time getting ready to go, you might want to remember that we have a tendency to think our own problems are greater than anyone else’s.

Well, I’m here to tell you – it ain’t so… No one’s life is as “peachy” as it seems on Facebook.

Today’s Tiny Words. Big Life. Bible verse comes from the Apostle Paul, who in my opinion, lives the Christian life that’s equivalent to Lake Wobegon. His faith is strong, his deeds are good-looking, and his obedience is above average.

But that too, ain’t so.

Listen to what he’s saying.

He has weaknesses… and the Lord knows. He even “plead” with God to remove them. But God said no – that “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Generally speaking, that’s not what we want to hear. We want things to be good. We want the bad things to leave. In fact, if we were on a train headed to Lake Wobegon, most of us would likely choose to hop off at the next stop.

But God didn’t create you to think that way.

The Tiny Words. Big Life. takeaway is this: Pray to live your life in the grace and mercy of God, being thankful for the good and the bad. Pray to find joy in all that life brings, even when it’s lived on the “other side of the tracks” of Lake Wobegon. Pray to be strong in the face of trouble and know that God has freely given us a way to overcome it.

His name is Jesus…. whose head was pierced with a crown of thistles, just for you.


2 Corinthians 12:6-10

Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say, or because of these surpassingly great revelations. Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given 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. 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.