Ever wonder what Paul's Thorn in the Flesh was? It's a topic that has been discussed much throughout my ministry. I doubt we will ever know for sure, but Galatians 4 offers us some insight. Verse 13 says, "I was sick when I first brought you the good news." First of all, what a stunning admission from the Apostle Paul! The man who had probably the greatest healing ministry in the New Testament! He says he was sick?!? I know of health and wealth preachers who say they don't "do sick." Well, Paul did. I attended a healing service last Friday night, the healing evangelist has 85,000 documented healings in his ministry, let me say that again, 85,000! But it was interesting that when he came out to preach he ambulated slowly across the platform using a cane, and had to preach sitting down, he looked to me kind of like what Paul was describing here in Galatia. Now many people on Friday got healed and many didn't? Why? I don't know for sure. When I preach the gospel many people respond and get saved and many people don't. Why? I don't know. The gospel, in its fullness, which includes healing (see Romans 15) is mysterious.
I don't understand how just before He gave the great commission, Jesus appeared to many people and some believed and some doubted. How is that possible?!? To see the resurrected Christ in front of your eyes, and then walk away saying "Nope, I am not buying it." But people did (Matthew 28:17). The same is true with healing, I don't understand how Paul could heal everyone on the island of Malta but yet had to instruct his protege Timothy to drink a little wine for his IBS, or had to leave his friend Trophimus sick. Even Jesus in Mark 6 could do no miracles, in Mark 8 he laid his hands on a blind man and the man wasn't healed, he said he saw images that looked like trees moving around, and so even Jesus had to lay his hands on someone twice.
I try not to get caught up in the mystery, figuring it out with my mind can often distract from the assignment. I just want to be an obedient son. And when I lay my hands on the sick and they get well I don't take the glory and when they don't, I don't take the blame. My job is just to follow the example of Jesus and leave the consequences up to Him. He said that the Christian, not the preacher, not the evangelist, not the prophet...the Christian, would lay their hands on the sick and they would recover (Mark 16). Notice it's not instantly healed, its recover which indicates time. Now I have seen instant healings in my ministry, but more often it's a phone call a week or two later, did you hear about so and so, they were healed!?! Healing, the gospel, is a mystery, the good news is God has not called us to perfectly understand but to obey. So Paul comes to Galatia sick. Verse 15 provides a clue as to what Paul was dealing with, "I am sure you would have taken out your own eyes and given them to me if that were possible." Many theologians speculate that Paul's thorn in the flesh was poor eye sight. I can't help but wonder if Paul's eyesight was like Jacob's limp. Remember when Jacob wrestled with God at Peniel? The Lord dislocated Jacobs hip that night. I am sure for the rest of his life when it would flare up he would remember that encounter. Remember when Paul first encountered the Lord, he was blinded. Some times we have an encounter with the Lord that is so intense that we will never forget it. It's permanently etched into our minds of when the Lord broke through in our circumstances, when the deliverance came. Maybe that's not true for every one, but it should be. I have discovered that a man with an encounter will always trump a man with an argument. Paul's systematic theology was destroyed in the moment he was struck blind. If you don't have a God encounter moment that marked your life, ask the Lord to give it to you, or to remind you of what it is. Or let me pray for you... Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that you would give the reader a profound encounter with you that would mark them for the remainder of their life...In Jesus name I ask...Holy Spirit Come!
Cameron McDonald
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