“And
the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and placed it on his head…”
John
19:2
The accolades, praises, and rewards that
this world gives are nothing compared to the reward of Eternal beauty and joy
of Heaven. I’m sure that each of us, from one time or
another, have found ourselves stuck in pleasing people or trying to win them
over for reward sake, for how we will look.
But,
when will we learn? This is not the right crown. Fame or popularity, recognition, whatever you want to call it is like a
crown of thorns piercing our skin. It does nothing but eventually cause
pain and trap us into an endless cycle of craving more attention. We think that
the fix to the pain is more praise from others, from making others happy, but
this is distorted. Instead of gaining the greater good, we end up losing
ourselves in constant pain. This is not
what our Father in Heaven wants!
His
Son took on the Cross and bore the crown of thorns to heal us, to bring us new
life, to teach us. The lesson of the
Cross is love, obedience, mercy, and surrender. These will gain us more than
one word of praise spoken from another person. Acknowledgment, in itself,
is not always bad; sometimes it helps us to know that we are on to something
and helps us to be aware of fruit that is producing in our lives. However, as
difficult as it can be to resist, it should never be what we seek or the reason
behind our actions.
The Father’s Love never fails and is
incomparable. Let us ask for the grace to know this within our
hearts…to let this fill us. If we accept that Jesus wore the crown of thorns
for us, then we have no need to put it on ourselves. Once we make pleasing our Father in Heaven, our bread, then there will
be no need to find painful, distorted, or fruitless ways of filling our emptiness
elsewhere.
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