Thorns are hard, prickly things. So are the thorny experiences of life. Yet every one of these “not joyous but grievous” experiences is given by God to the Christian for a definite purpose, His spiritual perfection.
He chastens, i.e. He disciplines, for our profit that we might
Be partakers of His holiness (Heb. 12:5-11). The Lord will
Perfect that which concerneth me (Ps 138:8).
But how about the thorn that stays with us? Naturally we pray for its riddance. BUT IT STAYS!
When the Apostle Paul realized that this staying thorn was the Lord’s will, he at once made friends with it and sought ways to use it to God’s glory. And that took the sting out of the thorn. So much so that he said,
I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities
(2 Cor 11:30; 12:5)
He cashed in on God’s promise.
My grace is sufficient for thee (2 Cor 12:9).
And so he pressed on to a new plane of Christian living and to new highways of spiritual adventure and discovery, never dreamed of by those of unruffled lives.
Was it not so with Joseph when sold by his own brothers into Egypt, a most trying and bitter thorn in Joseph’s life?
Ye thought evil against me, said Joseph, but God meant it unto
Good (Gen 50:20).
“What God means is always too good to be lost and is worth
all it costs to learn.”
George Matheson, the Scottish preacher who became blind, was gripped with this truth when he said, “My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn. I have thanked Thee for my roses, but not once for my thorn. I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory. Teach me the glory of my cross. Teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that my tears made my rainbow.”
Those miserable thorns!
What “eternal weights of glory” they may be!
And sure—thy life will richer grow,
He grace sufficient will bestow,
And in heaven’s morn thy joy ‘twill be
That, by His thorn, He strengthened thee.
--Claude A. Ries
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