A GOOD FRIDAY MEDITATION

 Kay Simmons Adkins·Friday, March 25, 2016

I hate greenbrier. We have it everywhere on our property and it makes me angry. So last weekend I spent a couple of hours rescuing a tree from a major wad of greenbrier (see banner image). Numerous thorny greenbrier vines were established within an inch or 2 from the base of the tree, and had obviously been growing up with the tree all of its life--a gnarly mess from the ground into the tippy top branches of the tree.

 The process was trying. I severed vines at the ground, lopped the mid-sections to lessen the entanglements, yanked and tugged some free, discovered more vines previously hidden that had to be cut at the base of the tree (“Another one??? How did I not see that?”), and repeated the process over and over and over.

The more vines I removed, the more it seemed there was to tackle. But each wad I pulled out was like a little victory in my mind. I hoped the tree, if it felt anything, felt victorious as well! I hoped it was not silently screaming—“No! Not that one—it will hurt when you pull that one!”
Gloves protected my hands, but I still suffered several minor piercings and scrapes that made me appear to have been in a cat fight. Blood, albeit a tiny amount, was shed to free that tree from its captivity.

The tree did not choose to dwell with the greenbrier, and the tree did not choose to be entangled. It happened slowly, over years—that bound up life was probably all the tree ever knew. If the tree wanted to be free, it could never have freed itself.

That tree and I have a sort of relationship now. I know I’ll keep protecting it. And it helped me too. . .

Today I am mindful of, and grateful for, someone who shed a lot of blood for me, and who rescued (and is still rescuing) me from harmful, worldly entanglements. Where would I be now without a compassionate Savior who saw a world held captive and initiated the decisive rescue at the expense of his life, who revealed to me my own plight and my ultimate inability to save myself, who offered me his salvation gift and gave me enough faith to accept the offer, and who promises to complete the work He started in me?

Hebrews 12:1-3 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.