In a culture obsessed with comfort, the Bible challenges our fundamental understanding of suffering.

And here's the primary difference. True spiritual maturity comes not through avoiding pain,

but through embracing our weakness. Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall invites us to take a deep dive into this clarifying truth.

In doing so, we'll have a fresh understanding of God's redemptive purpose in our suffering.

It's not about our happiness, it's about our transformation.

So let's pick up our study in 2 Corinthians

12. Chuck titled his message, Finding Contentment in God's Sufficient Grace.

Saul was taken from this earth and with or without body into the presence of the Lord Jesus

and eyeball to eyeball face to face received truth that was not given to other apostles.

Verse 7, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. Scallops is the Greek word translated

thorn. It means a sharply pointed stake. Now what was the thorn? The guesses are numerous.

Some say spiritual temptations, others carnal temptations,

others opposition and persecution, physical deformity, epilepsy, migraine, serious eye trouble, hunchback, recurrent attacks

of virulent malarial fever and its accompanying throbbing head pain almost to the point

of unendurable existence.

The answer is, we don't know.

You read one scholar, he'll identify the scholar absolutely as this.

You read another one, he'll say,

couldn't possibly be this, it's got to be that.

You read another one, he'll say neither that nor this, but I have

God's mind on this, it means this. And when you're all through, you want to throw them all away.

Nobody knows. And you know what that means? Doesn't matter. That means any handicap or pain you and I

...