Thorny Me

Shyju Mathew

"Experience the Word of God, in the power of the Spirit."

September 1, 2010

Rose – the sweet scent and dark crimson petals carved within have become a timeless symbol of love. But right below the redness of the rose, the stem is armed with sharp prickly thorns that stick out threateningly as if to guard the rose. I do not particularly think the thorns have had anything to do with broken hearts across the sand dunes of time but at some point in life, we certainly come across thorns that leave a mark on the landscape of our existence.

Even though the rose is much praised and spoken of, there is a procedure that people let it go through before they touch it, hold it or gift it. They choose to see those thorns removed that otherwise might cause pain instead of pure joy at a momentous occasion.

Of all the plant collection in the house, my mother loves the rose plants. There is a certain charm about a house that is adorned with fresh living plants. The room is charged with life and beams of a healthy aura. However, there would be one thing that you would avoid, if you were to have children around the home and it would be those thorny plants.

Even in real life, we all have a innate tendency to distance ourselves from these kind of people. We also try to avoid getting into anything that could lead to any kind of hurtful experiences. But the truth is that there is no rose without a thorn. The best of us have the worst nature hidden within that requires daily crucifying to the cross.

Our God, mighty in power and rich in mercy, who knows the end from the beginning, is not uninformed to the hidden thorny conditions of man. In fact, he always chooses the ones whose characters needed polishing and the snipping away of thorns.

When this all powerful God chose to appoint the stammering, diffident Moses to speak to the king of Egypt, he chose to reveal Himself to Moses through a thorny bush in the wilderness. God manifested the glory of His name, “I Am That I Am” to blaze through that spiky plant at Mount Horeb. Yet, in mercy and kindness of his everlasting name, God chose not to burn the bush to ashes.

How much more will He be patient with us? We, who are made in His image, are carved in the palms of His hands that were nailed for us. When the fire of God blazed on the thorny bush, the flaws on the bush were unseen and it began to draw Moses to God.

The shunned bush had lived decades on the mount of God till that one special day arrived when God revealed himself through that thorny bush. The more we soak in God, the more we let Him shine through us; and the brighter Jesus shines through us, our thorny nature loses its power and people begin to see Jesus through us. Our weakness serves its purpose of existence as HIS power is made known through our total surrender to HIM.

Trust Jesus with your flaws that otherwise would cause for people to ostracize you; those areas that seem to stick out like a sore thumb, the areas that you struggle to change even though you wish you could change. Trust Jesus to shine brighter than those weaknesses of yours, for He is the only way. In His transcending light, all darkness flees; and in Him, we find our peace.

Oh, how He loves us!