Some time ago, I received a message. I wrote it down and didn't think too much about it, not realizing where it really came from and what it really meant. I thought it was just another inspiring poem I was proud of writing. Time went on.
The rhythm of this poem always reminded me of the sound of a psalm in the Bible or something slightly Shakespearean. It rang out in my head day after day, and I wondered why. I left it out on my coffee table displayed in its tiny tattered mistakenly scrap-like look thinking the meaning would one day pop. The only thing I could think about it was that it must be referring to this desert city I was in, and how I wanted to plant and grow vegetables and farm so bad but couldn't because the desert soil was so dense, hard and dry. I thought this came from my spite of the state I was living in geographically.
Time went on. Seasons changed. Circumstances changed. Physicalities changed. I put the little note in a box. I moved out of the desert. And later on I changed. All the while this poem or whatever it was lingered in the back of my mind. More time went on.
But at 3am on a very dark moonless night on top of a quiet mountain in the corner of the north American continent I was alone in my room grieving many things. Regretting many things I'd done.
Within a cloud of darkness, pain and hopelessness without joy. I fell down on my knees and begged God to speak to me. To help me. Somehow.
The flash in my mind at that instant was this tiny scrap piece of papaya paper with these words by now I had forgotten.
And in that instant, their meaning was revealed to me. This was not just a poem I wrote. It was not about my spite for the desert. I had not written this at all. In fact, it was written to me!
God spoke to me! Yes, that's right, this message is about me!
I was the thorns! God is the sower! And the peace, love AND JOY of Jesus, enduring through the trials of his life for us, is the seed! God was trying to tell ME something about myself way back then!
I was too busy being a thorn while wondering why my belief didn't flower! I believed, yet I suffered because I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't know I was the thorn!
I didn't know the Lord praised God even in His anguish, humiliation and suffering! I didn't get the other half of His message! Praise God in all things! And joy and blessings follow!
Had I been more "in-tune" would I have understood then? I don't know! But that doesn't matter! I understand now, Praise be to God!
During the years in the desert God blessed my life richly beyond my imagination. But I was a thorn. In my own side. I grumbled in pain over things I had no control over. I was caught up in a whirlwind roller coaster of emotions yet, God kept blessing me with so much, kept granting me trials, kept putting it in front of my face, saying "Be joyful in all things for you believe in Jesus!" "He is joyful! He is praising me! The Holy Spirit is joyful!" "He is with you!" "Praise me!" Accept the joy Christ felt even through his persecution!" "I love you, as Christ loved, and still does."
He wrote me this message though, in all my thorniness, in all my hardened soil, knowing, it would take a mountain that I would climb in order to understand it.
The mystery, glory, and joy of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Praise be to God!
