It was the fitting moment to let a man, who had apparently finished with earth, see what heaven was like. Thus in the wonderful wisdom of God He lets this blessed man, in this particular part of his earthly pathway, see and hear Jesus there; and then he comes back to earth, to the scene whence Christ was cast out, and there he freshly learns the sufficiency of the grace of Christ.

Everything that we possess is up there. All the springs and resources of the soul are in heaven. When Paul came down, what a dingy, murky scene must this world have seemed to him, after the unsullied glories of the scene he had been caught up to! What difficulties he came back to, all the dull duties of life.

Paul has this wonderful revelation, and then he gets the “thorn in the flesh”; and just as he received the “thorn in the flesh,” so the Lord sees good to let us have one, and we cannot get on without the grace of Christ: “My grace is sufficient for you” is a lovely word for our souls at all times.

If you have a very difficult pathway, is not the grace of Christ enough? The arm of Christ enough? Ah, yes! The more we learn that He is our life, and we are just set here, and to be here for Him, the more deeply we feel we cannot get on a single inch without Him. We then hear Him say, “My grace is sufficient for you.” The Lord does not usually take away the difficulty, but gives strength to go through it. Paul is an illustration in his own pathway of this truth.