TADB 111: Discovering God in Thorn Country

When my wife and I moved our family to Kansas City, we bought six acres of neglected land and built a house.  With decades of negligence, the acreage was a forest of six-foot Canadian thistles, hedge trees, and thorny locusts.  For the first two years we lived there, I spent every free moment cutting, hauling, piling, and burning thorns.  Even after the trees were all burned, the thorns remained in the soil for years puncturing mower tires and tennis shoes.  

A thorn does not have to be big to be painful.  My dislike of locust trees increased when I discovered their thorns have a tiny tip that comes off when it punctures your skin and stays embedded even after removing the thorn.  So, although I could not see it, I could still feel it.  Thorns are downright painful!

One of life’s landscapes we will likely travel through is what I will call thorn country.  I define thorn country as the landscape where we encounter painful conditions that are long-term, even permanent (the word chronic comes to mind).  It’s the landscape where we believe God can and will deliver, but he does not.

The Apostle Paul introduces us to thorn country in 2 Corinthians 12.  His thorn was a physical condition from which he wanted relief.  It was probably painful, debilitating, annoying, and frustratingly detrimental to his gospel mission.  Yet each time Paul prayed for deliverance, God denied his request and told him (my paraphrase), “Learn to live with it.” He saw God heal others but not himself.  Paul’s thorn became his new normal.

We experience thorn country when our pain becomes, as far as we can tell, permanent.  So it is when the doctor explains you will never be able to bear children; the cancer is inoperable; your new baby is born with Downs Syndrome; your wife dies in a car crash. 

Growing up, my dad was a machinist by trade.  One night as he was setting up a 2-ton metal stamping press, his shoulder hit the release button, sending the 2-ton press smashing down on both hands.  In the operating room, the surgeons worked.  In the waiting room, family and friends prayed.  Finally, after long, anxious hours, the doctor announced that he could save Dad’s left hand but not his right; it had to be amputated.  Welcome to thorn country.

A diving accident leaves a teenage girl unable to move.  Hopefully, it is only temporary.  Surely, skilled care, physical therapy, and constant prayers of faith will make a difference.  But it does not.  Joni Ericksen has just entered the thorn country known as quadriplegia.

A young couple sits together in the maternity room, basking in the glow of their recently born son, their first.  Then, unexpectantly, the pediatrician enters the room and soberly announces their son is having difficulty breathing.  He says they have checked the baby’s heart and lungs, and both are fine; he suspects there is a problem with the brain.  But, although stabilized for now, he explains, their son will need transporting to an intensive neonatal care unit at a different hospital. 

Friends and family are told and form a prayer covering.  After a few weeks of observation and care, the couple can finally take their son home.  Everything looks fine.  But it is not.  Over the following months, it becomes evident that their son is developmentally delayed, but maybe he will catch up.  Pediatricians say he is just a slow starter.  The parents hope—more prayer.   

Looking for answers, they contact a family friend who is a doctor.  After examining the medical birth records, he concludes: “Your son suffered significantly low levels of oxygen and blood sugar during the birth process, which can only result in significant brain damage.  Your son is not just delayed; he will be seriously mentally and physically disabled.”  Welcome to thorn country.

As King Nebuchadnezzar throws three Hebrew men into his fiery furnace for not worshipping his idol, they make a bold proclamation.  They believe their God can deliver them from the furnace, but they will still worship only him even if he chooses not to.  Thorn country is all about the “but if nots” in life.   Interestingly, among the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith heroes is an extensive list of “but if nots.”

How do we respond when living in thorn country?  It often begins with a feeling of abandonment.  “Why does God not show up?”  After all, have we not been asking, seeking, and knocking (Matthew 7:7-8)?  The reality is that in thorn country, we can easily…

• wonder if we have enough faith.
• feel a sense of guilt that we are being punished.
• rehearse a series of “what ifs.”
• fear the future.

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul shares what he learned in thorn country.  “Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away.  Each time he said, ‘My grace is all you need.  My power works best in weakness’.  So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me…. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).  Paul’s understanding of God’s grace is greatly expanded in thorn country. 

As in all of life’s landscapes, God will “show up” in our thorn country, but perhaps not in the way we want.  He may decide to deliver us through rather than out of our circumstances for us to discover that his grace is all we need.  It is in thorn country where we gain an understanding of El Shaddai:  the “All-Sufficient One,” the “God Who is more than enough.”  

In thorn country, grace is a daily need and a promised provision.  God’s grace in thorn country is not for the “what ifs” of the past or desires for the future.  God’s grace is promised and experienced only in the moment.  And when tomorrow comes, grace will be waiting to meet us.

For reflection

1.  If you have ever been in thorn country, how did you feel?

2.  How do you respond to the statement, “God’s grace is sufficient for the present, but not for the past or future.”