IMPRISIONED BY THORNS

A few years ago upon moving to the country, my husband took me on a grand tour of the property that we had purchased. Having grown up in the country, I will always remember the many wonderful things about it. The best parts being the trees, gullies and fields, covered with tall grass for the dove and quail and many types of wild berries and sweet grass for the deer. It was a pleasant surprise to see all those things on the land that we now owned. While we do have some barbwire fencing on our property, there are some places that have a natural hedge of vines and thorns that kind of act like a natural fence line. As we rode around on the 4 wheeler I kept looking back at the briar hedge and kept thinking to myself, how I would hate to have to try and get through or over that hedge. I believe I would have sooner taken on one of the bulls in a nearby pasture than to take on that hedge of briars. At least with the bull, I would have a running chance! I noticed that inside the thorny part of the hedge, rest a beautiful running vine that if I had to guess, would say the vine was honey suckle and in the springtime would become a sweet and fragrant aroma in our fields. Now I do love sucking on me some honeysuckle! Yep I am that kind of country! But no sugar on earth is worth sticking my hand in thorns to pick a single flower just to retrieve a few drops of nectar. So those briars and thorns will defiantly keep this old girl out of the honeysuckle, at least in those hedges! After our tour of the property, I continued thinking about those hedges over the next few weeks. I should have known that in time, the Lord would provide me with some lesson to teach or remind me about some sweet truth, that He was about to reveal, as those briar hedges kept resurfacing in my memory. Sure enough, as I was reading a book on Revival one morning, I ran across a reminder of how, we can allow ourselves to be imprisoned by our own hedge of thorns and that through disobedience we allow the enemy to keep us from God’s best for our lives.

Recall with me the story about the parable of the seed. 'The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road, and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air ate it up. And other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. Still other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it out and other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great. Jesus explained the parable this way, He said, “The seed is the word of God. Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way, they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. The seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart and hold fast to it, and bear fruit with perseverance.

Now as I recall looking into the hedge of thorns on our property and seeing that honeysuckle vine growing inside, it sheds a whole new light as to what Jesus was saying in this parable about; ”And other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it out”. Odd isn’t it how the thorns grew up with the seed and eventually choked the life out of the seed. It’s kind of like standing in a food line next to a greedy person who whenever you were handed food, they would reach out and take your portion and you would keep allowing it to happen until you no longer had the strength to even care about it or struggle with it. As the thorny vine grew up with the seed, it was constantly taking the nourishment from the seed until the seed finally withered away. Oh sweet friend Jesus goes on to say that if we have ears to hear and His wisdom to understand this great truth, let us do it! If we are living a life of disobedience, by not doing what we know we should be doing, then we are setting ourselves up to wither spiritually and we are allowing a thorny hedge to be placed around us spiritually by the enemy, which will limit our hearing the Lord when He speaks to us and cause us more struggle in our walk, than we might have otherwise. For every place that the seed fell in Jesus’ parable, there was a condition as to why the seed flourished or not. We must learn about them both and be ever so wise as to not allowing the devil to steal and rob us that are in Christ from God’s best for our lives. There is a quote that I heard a long time ago, no idea who said it,  ”Never take shortcuts off the road and hurry as you go”, meaning simply: don’t get sidetracked as to what God tells you in His Word to do and do it quickly without thought! Because Satan is a roaring lion, the Bible tells us, and he is the thorny vine waiting for bits of truth to come our way so that he can steal it from us, and get us to the point where we are confused about things and not sure what God’s plan for us is! He is just waiting to wear us down so that he can jump on us and devour us and take away all that God intends for us to understand. If you have allowed a hedge to be built around you sweet friend and are finding that you are now imprisoned by it, because of wrong choices that you have made, there is hope. Simply, be dissatisfied with yourself, ask God to transform your life and forgive your sins and do a thorough job of repenting, trusting what Christ did on the cross for your failures and leave the rest in His hands. Today’s the day to get on the right road!

Loving on you today!

Bren