In church today the speaker, teaching about unanswered prayer, talked about Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” which he prayed three times for God to take away until God finally answered, “My grace is sufficient for you.” The preacher said the word translated “thorn” really means a “stake” big enough to impale you. I’ve read many suggestions as to what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was. Most have been physical weaknesses or disabilities of some kind. I saw a stake through Paul’s heart. What would hurt him that much? Perhaps, that stake which continually pained and grieved him, which God did not remove, was spiritual in nature—seeing more and more of his fellow Jews rejecting Jesus, their Messiah. So great was his love and desire for them to be saved that he said in Romans, “for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.” NLT Jesus experienced and many of us, I believe, have experienced great pain, a stake in our hearts, when our desire, good and worthy, does not match up with God’s Sovereignty.