God is more pleased with our weakness then with our success. Perhaps because for most people success is self-defeating. Until we have been squashed, stepped on, rejected, opposed, persecuted, and have endured all kinds of difficulties, success is hard to handle. The experience of our weakness is God's special gift. Paul had great revelations.
Great revelations are almost certain to be balanced by great temptations.
God is completely just and fair as well as concerned about the dangers of spiritual pride. The bigger the graces, the greater the temptations. This alerts us to the fact that beyond our ordinary experience of God, with our interpretation of what we think or expect by way of help, is the whole world of divine assistance that takes place in relative secrecy. This world is hidden, but real and much more substantial, affirming, and liberating then events or situations that we are inclined to interpret as God's special blessing or help. The kingdom of God is active in accidents, disappointments, rejection, and opposition of the kind that Jesus experienced from his own household and that Paul experienced in his weakness.