Roses Without Thorns

a personal testimony

1/20/2020

Some of the things God speaks to us personally, are to prepare us to recognize Him in a moment when we would normally rush to our natural ways of solving problems or being hard on ourselves. He longs to teach us lessons in the ordinary happenings of the day that we would begin looking for a God-ward approach to each situation and so that we would treat ourselves in the way He sees and loves us. 

This is one of the oddest outworking of a word... something you just don't make up! 

Part #1

On this day, while worshiping at PIHOP (Pasadena International House of Prayer), I saw a picture in my mind's eye that caused me to feel like God was speaking something tender and personal to me. I saw He was giving me roses without thorns. I said to Him, “You don’t need to take out the thorns just for me. I am used to living with thorns.” His reply was something like, “I want to give you roses without thorns because I love you.” That was a real sweet reply and I took note of it, pondering what the outworkings of this word could look like in the coming days, weeks and/or months.

TRUTH: God will bring seasons into our lives where He pours out His love without us earning any of it. In fact, even and especially in times where we blow it, it comes back as unconditional love, not judgement. In a sense it may be a season where our mistakes and shortcomings might be more visible or pronounced, yet the repercussions are more signs of His love. He is reminding us then that "Christ died for us while we were still sinners," that we never truly earn His love but rather it is truly given freely to ones who do not deserve it. 

Without this understanding in our Christian living, we may begin with a concept of His grace reaching us when we were broken, but then we might proceed to think we have to earn His love from then on. God is wanting to realign us again and again to the truth of His unconditional love.   

Part #2

Well, a day after this word came, I made a mistake and it was pronounced. I forgot it was Tuesday night, when I lead worship at PIHOP from 11pm-midnight. Because of a completely different set of events than usual on this particular weekday, I just completely forgot about my worship set time. 

I was ready for bed when I got a text at 10:55pm. Another PIHOP guy, Manuel, texted me volunteering himself to be a doorkeeper during my worship set that would start 5 minutes later (I currently did not have a doorkeeper so I was serving double duty, leading worship and then locking up all of PIHOP at midnight. It was then it hit me that I had completely forgotten my assignment that night. I freaked out!  I was virtually undressing getting ready for bed and now, in 5 minutes, I had to start leading worship at PIHOP. Yikes!!!

So I called Manuel immediately to explain my mistake and predicament and before I had said anything, he began telling me that a friend from Germany, who used to lead worship at PIHOP in the past, was in town and was at PIHOP at that moment. He was literally asking that if I wanted to, his friend was willing and ready to lead worship at my set time. It was just an impromptu offer (he was completely unaware of my mistake) but the timing of that just floored me. I had to pause for a few seconds to gather my bearings. Immediately the word came back to me from a day before ("a rose without thorns"). This is it! It's happening right now. And so in recognizing God's unconditional love displayed in the kindest of ways, I breathed in relief. In humility before my loving God I said to Manuel, "Yes, of course, you guys can go ahead and lead." And with that I hung up, my SNAFU fixed before I could ask for help or apologize for my blunder. Everything was all of a sudden set, settled, and I was now free to hop into bed. WOW!!!

One other potential problem this blessing evaded: Our director at PIHOP had originally been scheduled to be the doorkeeper at my worship set time this particular night, a first also for her. She had volunteered herself because she felt bad that I had no doorkeeper. But my friend Manuel had already sent her home earlier that day as he decided to give her a break. He sent her home to rest as he knew she had had a long day already. 

Without these surprising events unfolding, here’s what would have happened:

When I hopped into bed and proceeded to tell my wife the ordeal that was avoided, she laughed. She said she could see me telling Cheryl, our director (had she stayed to doorkeep and not seen me there), “Trust me, Cheryl. I have never ever missed my scheduled time in the last 1.5 years EXCEPT for tonight.”

The beauty of this whole ordeal is that within a minute of me finding out my big blunder, God showed me that He Himself had orchestrated my coverage, in such a way that I was completely freed up to stay home and sleep, with a smile on my face. God had shown me His unconditional love, with an image to go with it: His love displayed like a bouquet of roses... without thorns. 

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. - 2nd Corinthians 12:9-10