Roses: Fragrance and Thorns

After several weeks of talking about thorns, I’d like to say a word about roses.

A true appreciation for colors, shapes and fragrances of roses can be lost in the press of attention to the thorns.

If you are standing far enough back from the flowers, you can enjoy their beauty without paying any attention to the danger. But you can miss the perfumes they hold for those who come up close.

If you’re standing in the middle of the rosebushes while a windstorm is swirling them all around, it’s hard to do anything but stay out of harms way.

The trick seems to be to get close enough to smell the roses while staying far enough back to avoid the thorns.

I think a lot of Christians try to do that. They try to get as close to Jesus as they can for the warmth and comfort his presence brings, while staying far enough back to safeguard whatever it is they are afraid he is going to take away from them.

I do that.

And I do it very well. I disguise my true motives, saying I am concerned with this or that aspect of the matter. I even find Scripture to back up my stance. But all the while, the truth is that I want something to be different from the way the Lord wants it to be. I want it my way.

Only sometimes you don’t get to choose where you stand. You can only agree to stand there or walk away.

Before I walk away, I’d better make sure the ground I’m leaving isn’t the one on top of the rock. I might be headed for sand instead.

If I’m sure of my ground, I can risk standing around among the roses even in the whirlwind.

The words of a song I’ve heard recently speak to this issue. The song goes, “Oh, let the Son of God enfold you in his Spirit and his love. Let him fill your heart and satisfy your soul. Let him have the things that hold you and his Spirit like a dove will descend upon your life and make you whole.”

Let him have the things that hold you – everything that holds you back from touching and smelling and living among the roses of delight in his will, delight that quickens the senses, that fills rising in the morning with joy and going to bed at night with peace.

Of course, letting go can hurt. I’ve been hurt before and I still flinch when the thorns come my way. I can’t seem to help it.

Sometimes I even ask the Lord if I couldn’t have just a little recess from admiring the rose, a break from dodging thorns.

But no thorn ever comes my way that will be more than I can bear. He promised.

All those thorns have been taken by Jesus.

The thorns that do come serve to snatch away those things that had been holding me back – things we had been holding back and are now ready to release.

And when I look back from the other side of that place called “letting go,” I can mean it when I say that his yoke is easy and his burden light. Then I can renew my strength and soar on wings like eagles. I can run and not grow weary. I can walk and not be faint.

For I have smelled the roses of the Lord now and no other fragrance will ever sartisfy.