The Supreme Experience
My grace is sufficient for thee.
II Corinthians 12:9
Within a few verses Paul goes from height to depth and rises again to greater height than ever. His third heaven experience, his thorn in the flesh, his denied request, should settle once for all what is the supreme matter in this earthly sojourn. We like to play up third heavens, mighty deliverances, amazing answers to prayer. The supreme experience of Paul was none of these but a constant dependence on God’s sufficient grace. That does not sound spectacular, sensational; it does not make as good a story as third heavens and startling deliverances, but God rates it higher. After all, in the strength of it Paul outtraveled, outpreached, outwrote, and, in general, outperformed any man of his day.
It is better to be buffeted by Satan’s messenger than to be exalted above measure by a third heaven experience. Better have something you can tell than hear words you cannot utter! Life’s greatest experience is to live in the strength of Another the Exchanged Life – “Christ liveth in me.” It is better for heaven thus to come to earth than for you temporarily to be caught up to heaven.