The Thorns

I'm on this kick about strength in weakness. I can't get away from it. It follows me and shows up in my face wherever I go. It reminds me of itself daily as God has a way of stringing things together to make perfect sense in the exact timing He wants it to. Just yesterday I received an article from a blog I follow about it again: weakness. But, moreover, the strength we find in it. Coincidence? I think not! I drew one small snippet from the entire thing that touched my heart and it was this: Paul came to understand and embrace the fact that his thorn in the flesh was essential to his ongoing weakness and the experience of Christ's ongoing power.. These are the words of Kent Hughes, senior Pastor of College Church in Illinois.

The writer went on to say that he was having a rough start to his day and was finding it difficult to get motivated and organized about his thoughts, which then led him into his point on finding the power and strength in times of weakness. And that, perhaps not being able to do it all and do it all well was a point of significant remembrance and lesson to lean not on ourselves, but our Savior. I can't even believe that this exact thing I've been throwing around has made it's way to me again. God must be knocking at my door. I wonder how long He's been there?

The thing that struck me today in reading the article, and perhaps this is the nugget of Truth to take away from this lesson, was the part about the thorn. What a powerful word. Thorn. There are millions and trillions of thorns, each one gnawing at humanity like nightmares in the dark. We limp from their demobilizing capabilities and faint from their pungent odors. They are plenty, not few. They blindfold us, hold us back, taunt our fears, and become the single point of focus for most of our little lives. Thorns cause us to use crutches because of the tears and scars we carry with us each and every day. They make us sad, bring us down, and remind us of our pain.

This concept of the thorn, though, is perpetually the single most important thing in our walk with Christ, for it is the recognition of it-wholly and unselfishly-that makes our reliance on Him apparent and real. I can't imagine life without thorns and I don't think I want to, because it's the thorns that remind me I can't do it alone and that I need Him to help me. It's the thorns that tell me I need to trust and lean on Him. And even though the thorns are painful, they're my daily prompter to reveal just how pitiful I am without Christ.

I think it was Dr. Rutland, President of Oral Roberts University and former President of Southeastern University (I think I heard my pop say this once, too) who once said that walking with a limp is good. If you haven't guessed it by now I'm not referring to a physical limp, though that may very well be the case with your thorn. It could be a burden, a mistake that you have to live with for the rest of your life, a failed business venture, a physical ailment, a loss of job, a car wreck you just got in to, a financial downspiral, a hardship, a battle, an unexpected twist, a long-suffering journey, a broken household, a loss of a loved one, or others that are making you walk with a crutch.

The parallel here is Jesus' thorn. But His thorns He bore were much, much worse. In fact, they were so bad that they caused him to die. It tears me up inside when I watch the movie "The Passion," by Mel Gibson, that portrays Christ on the cross in the worst pain humanity could possibly bear. And we think our thorns are bad? Try again. Our pains are merely papercuts compared to the nails that he endured. But much like Jesus, we too do have these thorns that carry with us, sometimes for life. But the really cool thing is, we do not really have to carry them anymore because He has already offered to carry them for us. When He was being nailed to the cross He was ultimately saying that He would bear all of our sins, our pains, our hurts, our fears, our temptations, and our scars on our behalf so that we might live free from guilt and condemnation. And when we begin to lay these thorns and limps down at the cross, we can openly weep at His feet in remembrance of what He did and realize that nothing we are going through is impossible because He is right there with us.

I will leave you with one passage of scripture that touched my heart this week:

Luke 7: 36-50
Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pahrisee's house and recline at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is - that she is a sinner."

Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you."

"Tell me, teacher," he said.

"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"

Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled."

"You have judged correctly," Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman?" I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I enetered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven - for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."

Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."

The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Jobs

There are a couple of things I've been thinking about recently, as they relate to jobs. I guess I'll just lump them all together in one fell swoop. They do not all have one outcome or bring value to one thing in particular, but they are mere observations about jobs in and of themselves.

1. Sacrificial Training: As I started my new job in November and had to "learn the ropes," if you will, of a new position again I was reminded of how much time it takes to learn a new job and how much patience and effort it takes to train one to learn a new job. As such, I realized that there must be a thing called sacrificial training. When one does start a new job there is a certain level of time and dedication that goes into training that new person. Jobs are not learned overnight. And I'm sorry, but they are not learned either (very well) by being thrown to the wolves. Hands-on learning does help, but one should always be prepped and equipped with the tools to learn before jumping right in.

When someone is learning something new, the person training them has to be patient. They themselves, if they don't know already, have to "learn" that they are going to have to let go of what they're doing from time to time and give their attention to that person. It may not be easy or ideal, but it has to happen. I know it may not always be that person's choice to be the trainer, but the trainee does not care or even know that this might be the case. You cannot expect the new person to understand everything about the company overnight, learn the systems overnight, and grasp the concept of an organization's processes in an instant. Who trained you? Who taught you? Did they take their time? Did they let go of what they were doing for moments and help you truly learn what you were supposed to be doing? Taking the time to train someone is key, and it is a sacrifice. But if it is done with care and done slowly, they will (let's hope), in the end, be better at what they do, learn quicker, and understand more easily. And let's face it, it will benefit you as well.

2. Doing your job is like running your own business: If you want to be successful you have to act successfully. Doing a job sometimes is hard work, but if you want great outcomes you have to put into it what you want to get out of it. It is like creating your own franchise and dipping into the world entrepreneurialism. There a lots of negative things about working for a corporation or "Big Brother," if you will, but you can make good out of it too. Doing your job is like making a name for yourself, like marketing yourself, whether that be good or bad. You can become well known by your good works and ability to get along with people or you can easily become talked about as one of the folks who doesn't try hard or get along with others easily. When you run your own business, you want to succeed so you take everything you know and have and all your good qualities and talents and wrap them up into the biggest outpourings of your business. The same way applies to your job. You wouldn't want your business to fail, so why would you want to fail at your job? Your job is your business. It's your paycheck. And slacking off only hurts, not helps.

In a general sense, you are working with people and for people every day. You are making sure that the operations you are responsible for are being followed through and carried out. You support, you delegate, you respond, you organize. You run your own business. We all do. And by doing so, we can either create a welcoming, warm, responsible, and reliable environment or we can create a crappy one by which no one wants to come to us for anything and no one feels they can rely on us for anything. You promote yourself, and it is up to you how it's done.

3. We've had a lot of jobs: I was thinking about how many different types of jobs Isaac and I have had over the years. Some were hideous while others were great, and great for us, experientially. We only start to, we hope, rise as we move forward. The lower class credit jobs helped us get that higher class payroll job and the esteemed Military role helped us dance on into the Police Academy. The coffee making helped us land the Key Holder position at the Card shop and the Operations experience serenaded us into the world of Fulfillment Management.

There is so much knowledge to gain and I feel I have only hit the rim of the iceberg.