The Power of Humility and Weakness

Speaker 1 0:13

Up to this point , it was a regular day for Micah . He had been playing and doing regular kids stuff at his age . One particular afternoon , however , his mother told him not to play or to live too far away from their home . She explained to him that there had been some sort of a religious revolt downtown and that the Romans occupants and now rulers of the region were activated to assess the situation and , if needed , intervene accordingly . Micah did not understand much of this information , but he did see his mother's face , which granted him assurance that whatever was happening happened to be something serious . Micah was to meet his friends for a much-anticipated animal parade . You see , matthew , micah's father , carved him a beautiful horse with detailed muscle features and even hair . Micah was sure that he was going to be victorious on the exhibition . That day , micah and his friends met at their usual location and they were playing frantically with their carved toys and having a great time . But not too far from their location , however , micah heard a mob and tumultuous screaming voices . Once they were alerted to the full situation , they ran towards the noise . Micah remembered his mom's advice not to live too far from the house but breaking through the crowd to get a better look at what was happening , he sees a man carrying a large piece of wood plank on his back , while getting whipped and cursed by the crowd and Roman soldiers . Micah began to feel scared and thought of leaving and returning home . But before he left , this bloody stranger with a weird crown on his head took a closer look at him . Micah felt his heart dancing inside his chest when he noticed that this man gave him a weak but unmistakable smile . Suddenly , in the middle of all this , the bloody stranger fell to the ground . Micah heard his painful voice inside and felt deeply sad . The Romans kept hitting him and ordered the man back onto his feet and to continue his walk . After a bit of struggle , the man did just that . He got back up on his feet and continued his painful walk . But something remarkable took place . Upon regaining his composure , micah found a piece of fragment from the stranger's crown . The boy took a thorn from the ground . Micah looked at it and , out of nowhere , a voice inside his head told him this will be with you until I return . Not knowing exactly what that meant , micah saved the thorn and ran back home .

Speaker 1 3:25

We knew little of Micah's life after these events took place until an archaeological expedition found documents abandoned inside a jar of clay in a remote cave somewhere in the Middle East . The written material outlined a man that , although being a great citizen and a great man of faith , a family man struggled with some kind of an addiction . What kind of an addiction , you may ask ? Well , the absolute details were not revealed either , but what we do know is that there seems to have been a documented spiritual struggle with this man . His life portrayed a complicated scenario that found him struggling between pursuing right from wrong and fighting to make sure that he was in good standing in the faith and with God . In one section of the parchment there is a mention of this man's precious collection of wooden toys and childhood memorabilia , but one of them stood up as the most protected and guarded one a small tree the thorn mean .

Speaker 1 4:59

In a general sense , the thorn will always reveal the power of weakness in each and every one of us . In 2 Corinthians 12.7 , paul tells the Corinthians about his thorn and how that made him feel so beneath the providence , sanctity and purity of God Notwithstanding . God reassures him that he is aware of it and that he is also stronger than it . As we study biblical humility , we realize that it represents our submission to a higher power in order to overcome our struggles and sins . It means our submission to God . Humility centers us between the mortality of this world and the eternity that identifies heaven . Paul was essentially confessing the Corinthians about his personal struggle with this issue , while also reassuring them of the awareness that God has about it and how he will be the one resolving the matter . That bloody stranger , who we now know to be Jesus of Nazareth , told Micah this will be with you until I return .

Speaker 1 6:12

But that did not mean the thorn itself . He was speaking about the struggle with his addiction that would eventually ensue . His thorn was similar to Paul's . Their weaknesses were exposed and had no other choice than to practice a level of humility that will propel them forward . Submitting genuinely to God is the only effective way to fight sin . This will also lead us away from temptation . This will also lead us away from temptation .

Speaker 1 6:44

But one may ask why the thorn ? Why the thorn in the first place ? Well , because the thorn is the way God helps us to get close to Him . He uses our weaknesses to ensure we keep proximity to Him , to him . In 1 Corinthians 12 , verse 8 , paul wrote that God chooses the despised to bring his glory forward . The thorn represents that event . That simple piece of the tree branch that Micah held represented the human struggle to sanctity in a sinful world . In fact , 1 Corinthians 12 8 may mean just that . He takes a sinful man in a sinful world and introduces him to a life of sanctity , only to return him right back to the same sinful world he once lived

Embracing Weakness

Speaker 1 7:42

in .

Speaker 1 7:42

What a powerful , miraculous concept . You see , god is not so much worried about your thorns , my thorn . He is more worried about the way we go around and how to fight against it . Will we do it by ourselves or believe when he said my strength is made perfect in weakness ? I have my personal thorn , you know . I am pretty sure that you have one as well , but now we know that this is normal and even acknowledged by God himself . The question is how will we fight against it ? Thanks to Micah's curiosity , that day we can now understand . Be blessed . Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd . All Rights Reserved .