Beauty Amongst the Thorns
Cursed is the ground because of you;
With hard labor you shall eat from it
All the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
Yet you shall eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face
You shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
Our world was a beautiful garden beyond belief. Yet when man brought sin into the world the earth was irrevocably altered. With sin came death. With sin came hardship. With sin came the thorns.
What a devastatingly heart-wrenching moment it must have been for the world’s first couple at the moment of expulsion! Can you imagine a greater feeling of deep regret than to realize you had God’s perfect favor in a perfect world and yet, because of one selfish act of disobedience, you gave it all up not only for yourself but for the rest of your generations? How seemingly impossible it would be to go on.
Oh that we could see that original beauty of the garden! What it must have been like to walk among the plants in the cool of the day, to see all of life spread out before us in abundance. What must it have been like to pet the lion and the lamb in one sitting!
Yet we do go on. We adapt because God made us so that we could adapt. And He does not abandon us, but provides a means for us to come back. And all the while He shows us glimpses of the original beauty amongst the thorns to motivate us and remind us of who we are: His creation.
Look closely at the thistles and you will see flowers. Look at a thorned bush and you will see a rose. The salt-filled oceans that once wiped out a doomed generation of sinful creatures produces the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets. Even among the harshest and most barren of deserts the wind sculpts the land into beautiful and colorful dunes. God is still here!
He reminds us that, though we are fallen and corrupted, like the corrupted world around us, there is beauty within us. Why? Because we are His creation. We are image-bearers of Almighty God. His Glory is seen in the world around us that we may know He is still in control and has a plan of salvation for us. He sent His only Son into this fallen world to show us the way.
Look on the world with new eyes, you who are suffering in the heat, under the toil. God is still here. He is visible everywhere if you will only open your eyes and heart and truly see Him.