ODD THOUGHTS

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Australia!

Curse of Thorns

Thorns.

On my mind very much lately. As I walk I pass by many thorn bushes and mesquite trees filled with thorns. I walk through stickers sometimes and end up with one in my shoe on occasion. How they hurt! Nothing like walking a little too close to a thorny bush and being scratched or your clothes caught or torn. It’s a painful reminder to pay closer attention to where I walk. Every time I see the thorn bushes, it reminds me of the crown of thorns Jesus wore for us. And it also reminds me of how Adam and Eve were put out of the garden and the curse first began for mankind.

Genesis 3:

14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

16 To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’  “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,  since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

“Cursed is the ground.” In one weak moment of unbelief, arrogance and disobedience the curse fell upon all. We were cut off from the Creator. Man, made from the dust with life breathed into him, reduced from job of caring for the created garden to farming, and dealing with thorns and thistles. I can’t imagine a world without thorns and thistles. I’ve seen them all my life. In west Texas a person sees a lot of thorns and thistles. From the mesquite trees and prickly pear cactus, to thorn bushes, thistles and stickers, catclaw vines… sharp and pointy things are everywhere you look. I can remember as a child going barefoot trying to cross a little patch of grass beside our house to get over to the neighbor’s grapevine on his fence. I loved the deep purple concord grapes he grew, and he allowed us to enjoy them most graciously. But in my hurry to get to the grapes, I forgot there were stickers growing in the grass. I would end up with two feet full of stickers before I realized I’d walked right into the middle of them.

Painful!

Thorns mean pain. I can only imagine how painful it was for Jesus to wear the crown of thorns. Not just the woody points pressed down into his skin against his head… not just the bleeding the barbs must have caused him… But also in knowing that thorns sprung from the curse of the fall of man. And so He was crowned with the curse of all of mankind.The king of glory, the son of God, the light of the world, the prince of peace, Love divine… crowned with the curse of man, torn and bleeding, dying in place of humankind.

And how our sinful nature seems like thorns to me. Sin grows inside us pricking against our conscience, jabbing our thoughts, wild and unrelenting, never abating, creeping into our lives like a wild weed full of stickers and thorns. We keep cutting it back, chopping it off, plowing it under, trying to uproot it… And it pokes us, pricks us, scratches and tears against us and sometimes even entangles us.

This brings to mind the ram caught by it’s horns in the thorny bush which was used as Abraham’s sacrifice in place of his son. When we become entangled by sin, we are caught struggling to get free in our frustrating thrashing about. The more we struggle, the more ensnared we become by what we want to be free from.

Trying to get rid of the sin in our lives is a little like trying to remove a catclaw vine from a fence. It is one evil vine to try and rid from your property. It grows back almost faster than you can get it cut down and removed. It climbs fences, walls, telephone poles, trees, and even houses. And the thorns… the vine nearly seems to wrap you in thorns when you’re trying to pull it away from the fence. If you don’t wear gloves you’re asking to come back with bloody arms.

Sin is the same way. It’s insidious. It takes root and tries to grow in every part of your life. It takes over. It climbs all over everything unwatched and grows thick and thorny and covers every inch of space until it occupies all we are.

For Jesus to be crowned with the curse must have penetrated much more than his physical body. It must have struck him with pain much deeper inside as He bore our sin inside Him. Our own thorns of sin must have struck his heart like nothing else ever felt by any human. Every pain a barb of our iniquities.

Every failure of my inadequacy, not serving Him as I know I should… every wish of mine to do as I please, every broken promise, backsliding, selfishness, and every missed step …another thorn He had to endure. He was crowned with my sin. He was made king of my errors. He wore my shame for all the world to see. He was made sovereign ruler of all of our sin.

And in that crown of thorns lies all of our hope.

“For he has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians. 5:21).

Willingly Jesus wore the shame of all mankind. Nobody forced Him to. He did it for us because He knew we could not ever reach grace without His sacrifice. Every time I pass the thorn bushes on my daily walks, I remember the crown of thorns. Where once they brought me annoyance and occasional pain as I would brush against them, now they bring me hope as I’m reminded just how much He loves us. Not just me. Not just you. He loves all of us.

Come to Him.

Crown Him as king of your life forever.

“See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

Lil White Ponies

In honor of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, I’m posting a piece written by a friend of mine a while back.

lil white ponies

never given a breath of air
nor a glimpse of eyes that care
but i see em ridin’ in with their king
oh my, johnny had red hair

rock solid and what a smile
my JC comin’ to destroy and to claim
did you really think God would forget
misty was to be her lil nick-name

lil white ponies
way below innocent & guilty knees
lil white ponies
and the tears no one sees

never considered by reality
but they loved that room Mama made
lil white ponies
bringin’ babies into His shade

lil white ponies
shall not carry warriors to destroy
lil white ponies
comin’ for all babies cast aside
lil white ponies
carried to Mama’s with arms open wide

ride like your Mama, bareback on the hills
hand fulls of mane, knees locked to each side
billybob’s doing it with no hands and a grin
the thunder no longer whispers of sin

Mama is coming soon, hold me forever
we’ll ride with Papa upon the wind
each day with Jesus
yea, Heaven was created without end

lil white ponies
each child shines as the Son
lil white ponies
only Love could set this right
lil white ponies
carry a ray of Heaven’s light

from the babies who died for moses
to the miscarrage that crushed a single heart
from the abortions in the land of the free
to the lil girls of china
from the heart of this lil poet
to the King of Kings and Prince of Peace
“Abortion must cease”

lil white ponies….I love you Mama,
Please love me

by Flockfeeder

Visitation

Back seat travel
sitting next to my sister
watching the trees fly by outside my window
like a forest going by on a very fast train.
Sleepy thoughts floating in and out
between daydreams and reason.
Huntsville.
An eternity away to nine year old me.
I watch the window
stare up into the sky
and wish I could fly
Free and happier than anything
to taste the clouds
and feel the wind blowing against my face
while smiling like crazy
because
I can fly.
I wake up and we’re almost there.
The car stops at another red light.
I’m a little scared of whatever is up ahead
We pull into the drive and I wish I could shrink away inside my seat
until I’m invisible.
Guards stand watching in towers higher than the trees in my neighborhood.
Arms folded.
Eyes searching everything.
I can see their rifles shining in the hot afternoon sun
My heart beats so hard I’m afraid they can hear it.
The fence in front of me stands taller than my house.
Great loops of barbed wire give a cruel looking razor sharp, man-eating shine.
I look away quickly, and hope they won’t ever tangle me
The guard we talk to speaks like he’s a part of the fence.
He’s like the wall.
No smiling in his eyes.
No nonsense in his voice.
He looks at me like he’s reading another empty chapter
in a very long and hard book
that he wants to put down
and stop reading.
I’m too afraid to give him a smile or a wave.
So I just look back at him with a very wide-eyed, wondering look
trying not to do anything wrong.
We park a long way out.
It takes a long time to walk across the hot black parking lot toward the building.
Like the fence and the guards,
it looks enormous.
It stands like a giant brick box against the sky
as if it’s trying to keep us all out
even the sunshine and the air.
Holding mom’s hand tight as we start up the sidewalk
imposing
the doors don’t want to let us in
the walls and bars don’t want to let anyone out
I hold my breath as I walk inside.
Faces…
mean ones
tired ones
sad ones
angry ones
hungry ones
they all turn and look at me
Eyes tell me a story behind each person
some are sad
some are old
some full of hate
and others are only very tired
they look to see who the door let in
inside of their caged in world
made of glass, wire and steel
Fences and walls
inside of the giant box filled with guards
I feel small and afraid
and I wonder why we have to come here to see my Daddy
My sister is braver
She walks tall and unafraid
She acts like she can’t see them looking
walking straight past the lady with the stroller
following mom like she’s another grown up.
I look at the floor and keep up with her tennis shoes
I don’t want to look up anymore.
Hard folding chairs line the room
with a counter full of little windows made of screen wire and glass
separating the whole room down the middle
groups of men sit on the other side of the windows
sitting and talking with us on the outside
guards stand at each side of the wall
and one sits in the middle between the two separated window aisles
He watches the men with folded arms
and stares at them, and us, all the while.
Daddy is behind the glass.
I see him come from outside of the hallway.
He looks different
but he has his same smile.
His eyes smile at me
and look tired around the edges.
He tries not to show it.
But I think his eyes are sad too.
He sits in front of the window.
And puts his hand on the glass.
It’s like a game.
I put my little hand up to the glass too.
His hand is much bigger.
I smile and for a moment
I’m not afraid.
My sister talks first to Daddy.
She’s older than I am and she’s got a lot more to say.
School, the new house, new church, new friends…
Daddy smiles and then says to wait just a minute.
He goes up and gives the guard some change
and buys us sodas.
Puts them on the little ledge at the guard’s post.
Then tells us to go and pick them up.
They are for us.
We walk down and wait, afraid to ask.
The guard stops being a wall for a half a minute
as he smiles and hands us the sodas.
Then goes back to his folded arms
and staring like a watchdog.
We play small games
whatever we can
on either side of the glass between us
Watching Mama and Daddy
they talk and smile some
and wipe away tears and talk some more.
It’s not as good as a hug,
but the guards and the wall won’t let him past.
So we put our hands again on the glass
and press them together there as long as we can.
Too soon, another guard calls time.
He stares like a wolf ready to bite somebody.
Daddy says he loves us, be good, listen to Mama.
And then he says good-bye
I think there were tears in his eyes.
Mama tries hard not to cry.
She watches as he leaves the little room
going down the hall
behind the caged-in bars.
Then we all turn away and leave for home.
I sleep nearly all the way there
waking now and then to stare up at the moon
wondering and staring
waiting for an answer to be spelled out in the stars.
The forest turns black and the sky to dark blue velvet.
while the trees fly silently past the window
like giant black bars made of iron.
I fall asleep and dream of flying over the big brick box
past the guards and razor wire
until I find my Daddy
where we both fly away together
soaring over the prison like a bird
and smiling like crazy
because we’re free.

I’ve arrived

But where am I? LOL!