Our lives are like rose bushes — we have moments when our words and actions bless others’ hearts with beautiful roses in the form of sweet-smelling blessings of kindness and encouragement and intercession.
At such times, the handiwork of God manifested in the colorful compassion toward another is so inspiring.
At our worst times, though, people around us don’t feel soft petals but instead sharp thorns.
Perhaps we’re upset with them and don’t want them to enjoy something nice from us, almost as a form of punishment for offending us.
They’re punished if they try to get close to us and, in a moment of spiritual blindness, we might even think, “It serves them right for what they did to me.”
Listen, Jesus is the Rose of Sharon, not the Thorn of Nazareth.
God never calls us to be thorns, but instead to offer a sweet aroma of faithful living to Him and to those around us.
Here is a teaching by Jesus on this topic:
“Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:44-45).
The Great Commission of sharing the gospel isn’t served when people see or feel thorns in our lives. Even if there are random good deeds and kind words dangling from our life’s thorny vine here and there, the risk of being hurt is greater in the unsaved person’s eyes than the reward of a small piece of help or encouragement now and then.
Let’s each pray for humble wisdom in order to have more roses in our lives and fewer thorny branches.
More people will reach out to us, and ultimately to Jesus, if we’ll do this.
As always, I love you
Martin
