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Picking
Blackberries in Scotland
Years ago, I used to go bramble picking with my brothers, usually during
the Fall. I think that you call brambles ‘blackberries’ over here. They
look like dark colored raspberries and they grow wild in Scotland. They
have a bitter sweet taste to them, but you can make a delicious jelly with
them, which our mum used to do when we brought them home.
To get to the biggest and sweetest brambles, you have to be willing to
fight your way through some really nasty thorns. In order to pick the
brambles off the thorns, you cannot use gloves. Inevitably, my brothers
and I would all come home with painful thorns stuck in the palm of our
hands. So as well as making jelly, sewing our ripped clothes, mum had to
be our nurse by removing the thorns with tweezers. In the end it was worth
all of the discomfort, trouble, and pain. The jelly she made was
delicious, especially on buttered slices of toast.
Paul writes about a ‘thorn in the flesh’ that he experienced in his life.
As a preacher, he could easily have become conceited by the amount of
power and esteem he was given by his listeners. But God gave him some sort
of impediment, which caused him a great deal of discomfort. He does not
mention what this thorn was precisely, but it was enough of a problem for
Paul to ask God to remove it. God, however, says “no” to Paul’s prayer and
so he has to learn to live with it.
Sometimes as Christians, we think that we’re entitled to live our lives
free from worries, stress, or attack. We think that just because we follow
Christ then our lives should be free from trouble. The advocates of the
heretical prosperity Gospel have caused Christians throughout the world to
believe that God is a great genie in the sky that supplies all of our
wants and removes all of our burdens. But this is not the case. God gives
us the ability to cope with our problems and to adapt our lives
accordingly. He never promises to remove them, otherwise saints like Paul
would never have had to live with their thorns in the flesh.
If you’re carrying a burden in your heart or mind, and it seems like a
thorn in your flesh which is always troubling you, take it to God. He may
not remove it from you, but He will give you his strength to enable you to
cope.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, we all have thorns in our sides and troubles in our
lives. Sometimes we just want them to go away, so that we can live our
lives peace and prosperity. Remind us that we have faith in You to help us
through those times when we struggle. Grant us the courage to face our
fears and enable to cope with the pressures we experience. In Your Holy
Name, we pray. Amen.
John Stuart tra...@aol.com
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
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