Natural Tendency

Each would have his suited "thorn": the very thing that would counteract his natural tendency, and so act to strip him of every pretension to power and break any fancied strength of man.
We see this on every hand and we see it better in our own soul's history. Another is not always permitted to know the secret thorn which rankles in the breast. We would often give the world to remove it before we know the "end of the Lord." He presses home the "stake" which pins us to the earth, as it were, in very powerlessness. You see this at times, for instance, in incongruous marriages. The soul is worn away, especially in a sensitive, spiritual mind, and there is no earthly power which can change the sorrow and heavenly deliverance is withheld.
Again, there is a child whose conduct breaks the heart of a parent. Every measure fails to deal with him, and the "thorn" rankles deeply in the wounded heart. It may be that some disgrace is permitted to which the soul feels that death were easier to bear.
It may be that slander has stung the soul with deeper pain. There may be, too, some human weakness which renders the afflicted one an object of pain to those who love him, or of ridicule to others.