Thorn

We have a place in Austin that has bougainvillea plants (those beautiful deep pink flowered vine plants) scattered around the back porch. In the summer they are beautiful, strong shaped green leaves contrasting the pink flowers...full, cascading and healthy. Then comes winter, the leaves fall, the flowers die, and the vines remain with nothing but hurtful thorns on the stems. I looked at them this weekend and they are so dreary looking. They are brown, and flat, the fullness has now left empty spaces and the beauty is gone. For this is the season where the winds are chilling, the colors fade and comforted warmth has been replaced by unsettled cold temperatures. But as I looked at those plants....all I see remaining are the thorns....and am reminded how painful they are when touched. And this reminded me of something that a friend sent me long ago:

"My God, I have never thanked You for my thorns. I have thanked You a
thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns. Teach me the
glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns. Show me that
I have climbed closer to You along the path of pain. Show me that,
through my tears, the colors of Your rainbow look much more brilliant."

We all have thorns in our lives...and thought they often are hidden from view because of our flowered blessings, they still are there. And there are seasons in our lives where the flowers do die and the colors do fade...and the thorns are all we are left with....but even the thorns have their merit. They have the potential to prick us out of our comfort zone. And help us to open our eyes and look around at what we have taken for granted, the priorities that we have attached ourselves to, and the realism that confronts us. When you look at a rose bush....what do you see? Do you see the thorns or the roses...they both are there...Roses are the fragrant reminder that things bloom in God's own time...we bloom in God's time ...and the thorns represent the hurts of the flesh that we encounter along our way. Hurts in relationships, in hardships, in handicaps, in personal trials, in failures, in disappointments, in defeats, in choking habits, etc.

Thorns are spoken of several time in the bible...but two places that I think you will find familiar are found in the New Testament. The first is when Christ tells the parable of the sower: Matthew 13 "A farmer went out to sow his seed.(The word of God) 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. (It was eaten up before it had time to root and grow.. we are swayed into different directions before what we have heard can sink in) 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. (someone hearing the word but having a hardened heart)7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants ( the thorns represented here are weeds, for us it is the persistent distractions and lies ...that grow rampant and steal away all nourishment and prevent "good" from growing) 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, (soil that was prepared...ready to receive the planted seed) ) where it produced a crop-a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. " Three out of four seeds were lost....


The second familiar thorn verse is the one that Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 12: Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.


Thorns have the capacity to choke us or to prick us into awareness. They can serve as a reminder that even in spite of them Christ is the one who will overcome them or ....they can suffocate us and keep us from reaching the potential that Christ has purposed for our lives. Thorns have the capacity to hurt and to hurt deeply...but that hurt however deep it may be is subject to divine demonstration...that Christ can and will, if we ask him, place upon our thorn his balm of grace and loving mercy and will use it to grow each of us unto himself. He may not always rid us of our thorns....but we know and can be confident as Christians that if we seek Christ's help... we will be able to Praise Him for the roses; thank Him for the thorns.

Dear Lord, Thorns do hurt...and each of us are exposed to them daily..sometimes it is a person who is our thorn, sometimes a circumstance...sometimes it is our own loneliness and discontent....whatever it is Lord I know that you recognize it much clearer than even we do. Help us to learn to live with, through it or pull it from our lives. And give us the grace to learn from it. Amen


Praise God wherever you are and whatever situation He has allowed you to be in . . . His glory will shine through!



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