Paul writes: \u2018Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, \u201cMy grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.\u201d So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That\u2019s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.\u2019<\/i> (2 Corinthians 12:8\u201310 NLT) Paul didn\u2019t get the answer he was looking for until he quit praying and started listening. Sometimes we\u2019re so busy telling God what He ought to do for<\/i> us, that we can\u2019t hear God telling us what He wants to do in<\/i> us. <\/p>\n
If you have a stubborn problem in your life, maybe it\u2019s time to stop talking and start listening. God taught Paul lessons at the best time he could learn them\u2014during difficulties. So the bad news about tough times turns out to be the good news after all\u2014that you learn more about God in the valley than you do on the mountaintop. CS Lewis describes how God uses pain to communicate with us: \u2018God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains.\u2019 <\/p>\n
Before God spoke, all Paul wanted was to remove his problem. After God spoke, he realised that in his problem he had found something better and greater\u2014supernatural strength reserved for those tough times when we realise God\u2019s presence is greater than our problems and His purpose is greater than our pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Paul writes: \u2018Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, \u201cMy grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.\u201d So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That\u2019s why I take pleasure in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}