“Afflict me, Lord! I like it.” He would have no sympathy with those who later sought discomfort and destitution and affliction and martyrdom under the delusion that such seeking had apostolic precedent. What Paul sought was the removal of the thorn. Here his trio of prayers refers to a singular event in which he pled passionately that the thorn would leave him. Significantly, Paul’s three prayers parallel Jesus’ threefold prayer to the Father in Gethsemane that the cup of suffering be removed, and