Devotional: Sewing Among Thorns

As for what was sewn among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.

Matthew 13:22



So I am not a gardener or someone who typically remembers to water things.  I think those made-for-TV glass bulbs that you stick in plants for people who forget they have plants were made for me!  But I love flowers.  Isn’t that always the case, you are drawn to things often that aren’t your gift.  Yet I do have the beginnings of grass in my yard and I’d really like to see green out my windows instead of dust, so I’m determined to do what needs to be done to be able to use a lawn mower.



On Wednesday it was a beautiful day in Washington and though working in the yard isn’t my favorite thing, seeing the sun again gave me a pleasant bent toward the task.  Our grass seedlings need some fertilizer and it’s needed to be mowed.  Not wanting to cover those bare patches with weeds that our mower would slice up and “reseed” the lawn with, they need to be pulled.  Maybe God uses this parable of the seed and the soil to explain why sanctification is a painfully slow process; He chooses to work one- by-one to remove the opportunity for sin to overload fertile ground.



So I was out with my heavy gloves on weeding these prickly, unforgiving menaces.   Now these weren’t dandelions but those nasty thorny ones that are a bugger to pull out.  As I was working, I was really living out the verse and reflecting on the cares of this world that take my eyes off God: parenting, house chores, school activities, planning for work, meetings…there seems to be a never ending list.  Not that I have an answer.  I do know that I need to be responsible to care for my family, yet how do I live in to bear fruit and reveal beauty, holding correctly those things?



Then I considered the next phrase of the verse; the thorns are also the deceitfulness of riches…deceit is lying, falseness, subtle manipulation on my mind.  I start every day in the world’s mold, believing that if I had I wouldn’t feel without.  The “had” changes daily.  The lie is that things replace God and will make me satisfied.  The truth in the seed trying to grow is that nothing but God quenches my thirst, satiates my soul.  Get something new, it feels good for about a day and then it’s not important anymore. 



Both of these thorns in life lead to unfruitfulness.  Nothing of value comes from allowing them to grow in your life.  It would have been easier to mow them, but underneath they are still there, rooted in deep and waiting to emerge.  Unfruitful to take them out on my own, only for them to multiply.  Why waste your time!  That is what unfruitfulness is, the drudgery of doing something again and again without the effects you desire. 



So I asked the Gardener of my soul to weed out the cares and deceit in me, so I can be lush in the hot season.  So that I won’t have bare patches but full, vast color.  So that underneath there is nothing wicked lurking to choke the joy offered me.  His name is Jesus and without Him working in me no one would be able to run barefoot around me.  Giving Him the credit He deserves today for His cultivating presence in my life. 



After I was done, I stripped off my gloves and saw the poison bumps the weeds had left behind; one of the outcomes of pulling weeds shows that your sin has its price.  It reminded me of my Savior.  Even after his resurrection, He still bore those marks on His hands.  He showed them to Thomas so he would believe that He was really alive (John 20:27).  What a blessed reminder that I am to bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus (Gal 6:17).  What I saw on my hands appeared first on His because He took it all for me…



May your soul ever be like spring as He prunes the things that don’t bear fruit, causing new life to emerge in the hands of the good Gardener…

-Rayna


Comments

Lyn said…
This is so insightful, Rayna. I can fully identify with your analogy, as I have many "weeds" that I constantly try to cull out. I guess this process will be an ongoing way of perfecting what Christ is doing in me daily, as I submit myself to Him.
May 18, 2012 at 7:58 PM
Jaime said…
Ahh - yes, a timely reminder, Rayna. Thanks for sharing!
May 19, 2012 at 1:50 PM
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