4/15 Strength for Today

A Lily Among Thorns

Song of Solomon 2:2
“As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.”

As the bride talks about her husband in the verse above, she made the statement, “As the lily among thorns...” When she saw her husband, she said that he stood out among all the rest. He was better to her than all the other people combined. In the next verse she said again of her husband, “As the apple tree among the trees of the wood...” When this lady looked at her husband, she saw the positive side of her husband and not the negative. I'm sure she could have seen the negative, but instead she chose to look at the positive.

Every marriage is a work in progress. As far as I know, there is no perfect marriage. The reason I can say this is because every marriage has imperfect people in it. Therefore, the imperfect people will have to work at making their marriage what it ought to be. One of those areas every marriage must work at is not looking at the negatives of their spouse. Listen, I know your spouse has some negatives, but they also have quite a few positives. If your marriage is going to work, you are going to have to put up with some thorns in order to enjoy the lily. Yes, the thorns of your spouse may be irritating and frustrating, but don't miss the beauty of the lily because of the thorns.

The lady in this verse could have focused on the thorns, but she chose to see the lily instead. You can either see a thorn patch in your spouse or you can see the beauty of the lily in your spouse. Too many people have an eye that looks at the negative when what we must do is retrain our eye to look at the positives in our marriage. The best way to avoid seeing the negative is to stop comparing your spouse with everyone else. If we were honest with ourselves we would know that everyone has some thorns, we just don't see the thorns because we are not that close to them.

If you look deep enough at your spouse you will realize that the beauty of the lily is far more beautiful than the prick of the thorns. The positives in your spouse far outweigh the negatives. Whatever it is that you complain about regarding your spouse, I promise you there is twice as much to compliment them about.

Do you see your spouse as a thorn patch or a lily? Remember, before you were married you saw them as the lily even though they still had the same thorns they have today. When you were dating your spouse you were willing to overlook the thorns because you enjoyed the lily. If your marriage is going to be happy then you must do the same now. Don't lose the beauty of the lily because of the patch of thorns.

Take some time to sit down and look at all the positives in your spouse. I believe when you start writing down all the positives you will agree with the lady in this verse that your spouse is a “lily among thorns.”