Several years ago, I had an experience that helped me better understand God’s motives in allowing and ordaining that his children suffer.
To help pay my way through seminary in Kentucky, I served as a manager at a family fun park. During my tenure there, I befriended the high school students who worked at the go-cart track, the bumper boat pool, and the miniature golf course. They were great kids, and one summer I decided I would take them on a fun road trip to St. Louis, the city where my folks lived. I thought they’d enjoy the Science Center, the Magic House Children’s Museum, and—of course—the Gateway Arch.
For the six-hour trip between Louisville and St. Louis, I decided we needed to drive something other than my increasingly unreliable 1988 Toyota Corolla. So, one of the kids asked to borrow the family car, and his dad graciously allowed us to take his brand-new 1998 Lexus GS 300, complete with power moon roof, booming Nakamichi 260-watt audio system, and—most importantly—a 3 liter 6 inline engine with double overhead cam and variable valve timing. That engine was a marvel; when it ran, it was soft as a mother’s lullaby and smooth as her baby’s tummy. But it was definitely a fuel snob; like a connoisseur who insisted on the finest, vintage wine, it would only accept premium unleaded gasoline.
Well, about fifteen minutes before we got into the greater St. Louis metropolitan area, we stopped at a gas station to refuel, since we hadn’t topped off the tank before we left Louisville. The guys in the back seat hopped out of the car and headed into the convenience store to pick up a snack, Nikki—my high school-aged co-pilot—stepped out of the car to stretch her legs, and I got out, lifted the nozzle, and started to pump.
Almost immediately, Nikki said to me, “Well, you learn something new every day.”
“What?” I asked, standing there with my hands in my pockets as the fuel, sounding like a small mountain stream, flowed into the Lexus.
She pointed to the pump.
“I never knew that a Lexus runs on diesel.”
I froze. I looked at the pump—and my heart jumped into my esophagus. Sure enough: I had pumped diesel into a Lexus GS 300!
“No! No! No!” I cried.
As quickly as possible, I stopped the pumped. Firing a prayer up to heaven, I ran into the gas station, which (thankfully) doubled as an auto repair shop. Exasperated, I found a mechanic and explained my sorry situation.
He stayed calm.
“Well,” he said. “You haven’t driven it yet, right?”
No, I told him.
“That’s good,” he said. “It’ll be okay, I think. We’re just going to have to siphon that diesel out of the fuel tank.”
Siphon? What did that mean?
si⋅phon [sahy-fuh n]–noun
Definition. 1. a tube or conduit bent into legs of unequal length, for use in drawing a liquid from one container into another on a lower level by placing the shorter leg into the container above and the longer leg into the one below, the liquid being forced up the shorter leg and into the longer one by the pressure of the atmosphere.
Basically, it meant that all of the diesel needed to be sucked out of the fuel tank. Correction: it meant that everything needed to be sucked out—including whatever premium unleaded fuel was left at the bottom. The fuel tank needed to be completely emptied.
In 2 Corinthians 12, Saint Paul writes about his own experience with a siphon. It is not his car’s fuel tank that is emptied, however, but his very soul. “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me…” (2 Cor. 12:7). Biblical scholars have tried to guess what exactly Paul was referring to when he referenced his “thorn in the flesh.” Although he personifies it as a “messenger of Satan,” some theorize that it was an excruciatingly painful physical ailment. Others think it might have been a person in Paul’s life who was a consistent and significant source of opposition and persecution. At the end of the day, we simply don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that whatever the “thorn in the flesh” was, God refused to remove it from Paul’s life—in spite of his earnest pleas.
This may make God sound harsh, but he had his reasons—and they were good ones. In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10, Paul writes:
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
God’s answer to Paul was twofold: first, his grace was sufficient. Second, his power was made perfect in weakness. Essentially, what God told Paul was this: “Paul, I’m not going to remove this difficult source of pain from your life. Why? Because it is emptying you. It is draining you of any tendency toward pride, self-reliance, and independence. And in the absence of these things, it is filling you with something that is far better: my grace.” That is why his thorn in the flesh—even though it hurts—was a good thing. It liquidated Paul of himself so that he can be filled with what would—in the long-term—be the best thing for him: God!
Like that Lexus filled with the wrong fuel, Paul may have been filled with the wrong “fuel.” The thorn in the flesh was God’s syphon to empty him so that he could fill him with something far better: his grace.
Nobody enjoys suffering. And there is a level of suffering that people throughout the world experience—including people who very much love Jesus Christ—that we simply cannot fully understand or explain.
We don’t have all the answers. But we do know that such people—and you may be one of them—are brought low for a reason. They are emptied of themselves and liquidated of their own self-reliance.
And, as difficult as that may be to experience, it’s a very, very good thing—for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (1 Peter 5:5).