Embracing Your Gift of Thorns

EMBRACING YOUR GIFT OF THORNS

“Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 5:19b-20 NIV

Who doesn’t love an great party or exciting celebration?  It can be such an easy and spontaneous things to throw our hands in the air in jubilation when we receive good news, an answer to prayer or blessing. 

When I was young, I remember watching my cousins as they watched a football game on TV.  With every successful play, they would shout, high five and dance around as if they were the one on the field having made the touchdown.

It can be easy to trust the Lord when we are feeling well, receive a big promotion or recognition for our accomplishments. We recognize our blessings, and words of thanks and gratefulness flow easily off of our tongues.  But when we are sick, injured or struggling with a thorn in the flesh— when we lose a job, a spouse or receive a devastating diagnosis, it can take everything within us to lift our heads off of the pillow, let alone do the touchdown happy dance.

Having recently injured 4 discs in my back, I can certainly thank Him while in pain and while struggling, because I can see His hand of love and mercy in other areas of my life.  However, thanking Him FOR the pain and struggle is quite another thing. It is a serious war with my flesh to think that I am to thank God for the very things I am pleading with Him to take away.  Yet that is what we are called to do.

Ephesians 5:20 doesn’t tell us to merely thank God while we are in a rough season, but rather, we are to “always give thanks FOR everything.” It doesn’t say to give thanks for every good thing or happy thing, but simply EVERYTHING—both the good and what we perceive as bad.

We need the reminder “...that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28

Sometimes when we are going through a lengthy season of great suffering, our minds can stumble over the thought of even making it through the trial alive.  So the thought that something good might ever come from it never even comes up on our radar. Yet when we look at the work of the cross—the most unimaginable horror of the crucifixion of the perfect Lamb of God, we reflect on THAT day and we call it, “Good Friday.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed and asked, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." – Luke 22:42.  He asked to be spared, but the Father’s will was for Jesus to receive the cup and drink it.  Jesus took the cup and trusted the Father to work things for the good. 

Hebrews 12:2 speaks to us with beautiful encouragement, “Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls.” MSG

Even in the midst of the pain, we can, like Jesus, know joy NOW.  Joy comes when we truly believe that either here or in Heaven, we WILL see the good that the Father will bring out of what only looks like bad. It requires extraordinary faith to take Him at His Word and thank Him for these trials, trusting that good is on its way.  

Father, I lift the one reading this.  Like Jesus, we ask that these cups would pass from us.  If it be your will, we ask for healing, deliverance and solutions to what is so difficult to tolerate— the pain and struggle, that without Your help, feel impossible to embrace. But not our will, but Yours be done, Lord. We trust that if these thorns remain, that good is on it’s way. Give us an extraordinary faith to take You at Your Word and to be able to wrap our arms around our struggles and welcome them as friends (James 1:2).

Extend your mantle of grace over us, Father.  Show us Your power through our weakness. Help us to capture every bit of good You are bringing out of our circumstances. In our tomorrows, we pray we be able to look over our shoulders and see that Your loving fingerprints molded every part of this difficult season.  

We thank You for our Gift of Thorns. We thank You for our trials and for the promise of good, even though at this moment we may only perceive it through the eyes of our faith.  We trust You, Lord.  In Jesus’ Name ❤️