The Gift You Didn't Want | Pastor Don Johnson
The Potter's House Podcast
The Potter's House
4.6 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2026
⏱️ 68 minutes
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Summary
It’s hard to keep the faith when God’s answer isn’t the one you wanted.
In this message, Pastor Don Johnson unpacks Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” from 2 Corinthians, revealing how God’s sustaining grace can meet us in discomfort, hardship, and seasons we never would have chosen for ourselves.
Watch this word and discover how to:
• Trust God even when life feels uncomfortable.
• Stop letting pressure shake your identity and purpose.
• Understand the difference between avoiding pain and growing through it.
• Lean on God’s strength when your own strength runs out.
If you’ve been wrestling with disappointment or prayers that seem unanswered, this message is a reminder that God’s presence sustains you in the hard seasons.
Message: “The Gift You Didn’t Want”
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:6-10 (NIV)
Speaker: Pastor Don Johnson
Date: May 17, 2026
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're tuned into the Potter's House podcast where we are encouraged by powerful testimonies and |
| 0:07.8 | life-changing truth. Let's go. |
| 0:12.9 | Quickly, let's go to the Word of God. Second Corinthians, 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. |
| 0:18.6 | Second Corinthians chapter 12. As customers, we already know we believe it's standing for the root of God. I want to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 12 as customers we already know we believe is standing for the root of God. |
| 0:23.5 | I want to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 12. |
| 0:25.6 | I want to read it from the NIV version. |
| 0:27.5 | For some of you, it is a very familiar past of scripture, but one of the sometimes, before |
| 0:31.7 | God gives you a message, you have to walk through the message. |
| 0:34.1 | I must tell you that this one was difficult for me. But I understand why I was |
| 0:38.2 | difficult because God says I'm laying the framework for you to be a platform for others to jump off |
| 0:43.5 | of. As you begin to dive into the word of God, it is 2nd Corinthians chapter 12, starting at verse |
| 0:50.8 | number six. I'm reading you from the NIV, even if I should choose to boast. |
| 0:56.9 | I would not be a fool because I would be speaking the truth, but I refrain. |
| 1:03.5 | So no one will think more of me than I, than warranted by what I do or say or because of the surprisingly great revelation, |
| 1:16.6 | therefore in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh. |
| 1:31.3 | A message of heaven to torment me. Three times I prayed with the Lord to take this away from me. |
| 1:37.3 | But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. |
| 1:47.4 | For my power is made perfect in weakness. |
| 1:55.4 | Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness so that Christ's power may rest on me. |
| 1:58.2 | That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, |
| 2:06.3 | and hardships, in persecution, and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. |
| 2:18.3 | Before we take our seats, and before I tell you my topic, I want to find my topic around verse number seven. |
... |
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