Briar Patch

I was honored to be asked to speak to a precious group of women on Friday who have been touched with breast cancer. Some of them are in remission, some in thrusts of treatment, some in question as to when the Lord will escort them home, and some are faithful, stand by supporters of ones they love.

Oh how I wish that I would have heard Sunday's sermon before I spoke. Our usual Austin church was taking a Sunday off to do community service so we visited Lake Hills, a church that we attended years ago when my children were at UT. Then it was in the early starting stages of a congregation of about 70 people, meeting in a school. Things have changed vastly...they have they own worship building and construction is on every corner of their land....but the messenger, Mac Richard, remains dedicated, faithful, down to earth and blessed by his gift of preaching. He speaks God's word with a continued sense of responsibility, dedication, love and faithfulness, first to the Lord and then to those who God has sent to hear and serve upon his word.

Mac told a story of his buddy inviting him to go out to the ranch to "break in" some new four wheelers. Road warriors that they were, they decided to do some off road jaunts and got stuck in the dead middle of a brier patch with thorns. The woods were dense and they could not go backwards so they geared up, propelled the gas and busted through in forward motion, leaving scrapes and scratches and definitive marks of battle. There was pain but there was victory, in their brokenness.

We all get caught in brier patches. And the thorns that we are touched with do leave pain and hurts and scars. Some of you are in a brier patch now and are faced with having to plow through it. Or maybe it is not a bush of thorns but just one thorn that continues to be a prick in your side. And it is with one heap of courage at a time, that we approach it. Paul, a bible character who so many times I can relate to, dealt with a thorn as well. And maybe when looking at how he works his way through his thorny pain, we too can be encouraged. Just take a minute and read this passage slowly, asking these questions?

1) why was it given
2) who was it given from
3) what did Paul plead for
4) what did God have that was sufficient
5) whose authority and power are on the line
6) what happens when we boast of our weaknesses
7) ultimate strength comes from whom

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. 9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

About Grace - God's grace shines in our brier patches. Grace is enough. Grace is undeserved favor of God. It is in the thorns that God grows us.
When we are in the thorn bush we have to:

1) TRUST GOD - Thorns keep us from thinking we are able to handle things on our own. From being conceited about our control, our salutes to self
comfort and satisfaction. God does not give us the thorns...but he uses them to reflect his grace and for his purposes. Is is in the trust that we are able to rest in the peace. God's grace is enough.

2) PURSUE GOD - How many times do we ask why and plead with God to take something that hurts away. When we recognize a thorn and we feel the pain and the anguish and the fear....that is when we should run to God. Seek his refuge, his wisdom, his comfort but above all peace that he is going to take care of it. God's grace is enough.

3) STAY IN THE GAME - When things get tough we want to get out. Oh but it is in the staying that we gain some of God's greatest blessings. We learn of strength that we didn't know we had, perseverance that we didn't know we could handle, courage that learns to overcome fear, and we learn that we are never alone in our brier patch battles. Don't quit, seek Christ. It is when we get to the end of ourselves that God's grace shines the brightest. God's grace is enough!

I looked at the faces of these ladies on Friday and thought...they are the brave ones, they are the ones who are in the arena fighting under the umbrella of God's loving grace. And God is working within them, around them and through them. But they are not alone in their battle, or in the battlefield. God's purposes are never thwarted, nor is his love ever compromised. They are the ones God is fighting for and through. And every time they reach out for his hand, and trust him, he extends His grip of peace that holds them in his favor. It is in the trust and the pursuit and the perseverance of God that they are being made strong in their weakness.

Maybe we are are not in the throws of a thorny time now but we either have been or will be. And these lessons of God's grace will and do apply to each of us. May we will realize the amazing power that Christ has been given by his father to transform us, and may we accept his help, and grasp his hand of power.

I have said it many a time but Mac yesterday rebuked it...."God never gives us more than we can handle."....recognize that saying? He said God gave us life and that is more that we can handle....without Him! And

Dear Lord, Your grace is enough, may we hold tight to that truth in any situation that is before us. Amen