After Adam and Eve ate the fruit God had told them not to eat, He said to them: ‘Cursed is the ground because of you...It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field’ (Genesis 3:17-18 NIV). Thorns are now a common feature of many gardens, some because they’ve been neglected and become overgrown, and others because they’re found with flowers such as roses. Some of the thorns in our lives can be removed easily by making changes. It’s a bit like the thorns in the overgrown gardens; if we take some time to remove the weeds and thorns, we’ll have a beautiful garden again. Others thorns can be part of a beautiful life, like with the rose. These are like the thorns God allows in our lives to keep us humble and close to Him. He doesn’t always take our thorns away in this life. But He has taken them away eternally. When Jesus went to the cross, the soldiers made him wear a crown of thorns. ‘They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him.’ We can remember this crown as a symbol of Jesus taking our thorns and our sins to the cross. Because He took them, we can now be connected to God because God now sees us through Jesus. We can now have victory over the thorns in our lives, because Jesus was victorious over all sin and death. One day, we’ll be back living in a garden with no thorns, no sin, no death, and no pain (take a look at Revelation 21:4). But until that day, we need to bear our thorns and allow them to humble us before God. 

What Now?

Spend some time in nature today. While you’re outside, thank God that He’s prepared a place for you where there will be no thorns, no sin, and no pain.