Thorns=Sweetness

It’s blackberry season, down on the farm, and we have 2 varieties, wild and tame.  The tame fruit is huge, as big as your thumb, or bigger, they have no thorns, but are so sour I pucker at the mere thought.  Out in the woods, the wild berries develop hidden between poison ivy, ticks, chiggers, and ruthless thorns, but they are naturally sweet.  Isn’t it funny that when horticulturists bred out the thorns, the sweetness was lost in the process.  I’ll be honest, I don’t like thorns.  They rip the flesh, snag your clothes and fester under your skin.  I have a mental list of questions I want to ask God, when I get to Heaven, and why he put thorns on berry bushes is one of them.  It couldn’t be to keep critters away, because they still get to them, and, after all, what good is a berry if it isn’t eaten? Anyway, every summer, in the sultry heat of mid-July, out I go, bucket in hand to pick those luscious delights, thorns and all.  Natural sweetness trumps scratches.

 Berries aside, God tells us about thorns throughout the Bible, none of the stories are pleasant.  For example; thorns growing up and choking out the sower’s seed, or the crown of thorns that Jesus wore on the cross, but then Paul relates another way of looking at these pointy pests.  “So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.” 2 Corinthians 12:7.  It still doesn’t sound pleasant, but each of us has a thorn in the flesh, something that keeps us from becoming too full of ourselves. A reminder that God is still and always must be in control of our lives.

We don’t have to like it, I’m sure Paul didn’t, but like those wild berries, I think they are present to produce God’s sweetness in us.  No one gets through this life with out being scratched or pricked, face it!  Sure, we might rather be big and juicy like the tame ones, but it’s going to take a whole lot of outside sugar to make us palatable. So, next time you’re out picking berries, thank God for the thorns, and the delectable sweetness of the fruit they are producing in you!!