A Briar Fight

I’d never heard of or even conceived of something like this until my kids came to me with brown thistle burrs stuck in their clothes and hair. Being a mom of three boys I’ve had to learn to handle mud baths, spontaneous water hose fights, and other messes. Usually, I’d just say go clean up and change your clothes, but we were at church. (Yes, church, of all places to get into a briar fight. I’m not even sure where they found the briars.) When it was time to check them into the kid’s service, my youngest was practically in tears because the hooks of the burrs had lodged in his shirt and were now irritating his skin. “Mom,” he says, “it itches, but not in an itch/scratch way, in a burning way!” I thought, well, yeah. What did you think would happen after a briar fight?'

As I worked on a solution that didn’t require me driving home to get him a new shirt, my gaze fell on the flash of blue tucked under my other son’s arm. The youngest took off his shirt and donned his brother’s jacket. He worried about being naked underneath, but at least the itch was gone.It may be because I’ve been writing for this blog for a while or maybe it’s because God is good at teaching me life lessons through my boys, but my first thought after getting them all briar free was, this is going to end up as a blog story. Sure enough, here I am writing about the briar fight. Hebrews 12:1 kept running through my mind. “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”The briar fight sounded like fun at the time. They knew it was something mom wouldn’t have approved of, but the fun factor rang louder than my voice in their heads. Afterward, however, they suffered the consequence of having tiny little needles pricking their skin, keeping them from being comfortable and from enjoying what God had planned for them next.Sin can be like the briar. It may seem like fun. Like it’s not that big of a deal, that it’s relatively harmless and besides no one has to know. But then, the little hooks of sin embed themselves into your clothes and eventually work their way into your skin. Their pinpricks become a distraction, an annoyance, and before long the pain becomes all consuming. The fun was short-lived but the consequences are long-lasting.Thankfully we have a big brother we too can turn to. If we ask him, he will strip us of our burr laden shirts. He will readily hand us his garment—the white robe of righteousness. The pain of our past, present, future sins he nailed to the cross. So, whenever the barbed hooks of sin try to embed into your life, remind sin to whom you’re related and the sacrifice that was paid for your freedom.“As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12Don't miss a post! Sign up for my weekly blog by clicking here: Lorri's Blog