The Axe and the Unbending Thorn

Artwork Credit: Farmhouse in a Wheat Field (1888) by Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). Public domain image accessed via Artvee.com.

In the middle of the wheat field stood a thorn bush. No one remembered planting it. No one could recall a time it was absent. The farmer allowed it to grow because it cast no shadow wide enough to trouble the grain. It kept to itself. And in its own way, it stood taller than the stalks around it.

Each harvest, the sickle passed by without touching it. The farmer’s sons walked around it. Season after season, it thickened and grew. Birds landed in the wheat, but never on the thorn. It stood rigid while the grain moved with the wind.

One summer, a drought came. The wheat bent low and cracked in the heat. The thorn still stood straight. In the farmer’s eyes, the field was ruined, and he ordered it plowed. The plowman worked in wide arcs, folding the dry wheat down into the soil. When he reached the thorn, his blade struck something hard. The roots were deep, wrapped tightly around stone.

The plowman called for an axe. By evening, the thorn lay in pieces. Its green had lingered from the first rains, but the roots were dry. What kept it standing was a stubborn will, not the life of the soil.

The thorn is what pride looks like when it learns to behave. It does not always boast, or take the best seat, or speak over others. Often, it simply stands apart. It can wait in silence, feeding on the appearance of strength. It can thrive in a field of faith because it is careful not to challenge the harvest directly; it avoids the kind of closeness that might reveal its true state.

But the Lord does not measure by seasons. He knows the roots. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (Jas 4:6, NKJV). Pride may outlast trials. It may seem unshaken by drought. But that is not life; it is stubbornness.

In the church, pride often hides under the language of conviction. It rejects counsel by keeping a safe distance from those who would give it. It treats correction with a polite nod yet continues unchanged. It can last unnoticed for years until the plow arrives.

The wheat bowed in the wind and in the heat. That bending did not prove weakness; it proved they were alive. “To this one I will look,” says the Lord, “to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isa 66:2).

If our standing has never yielded, we must ask whether faith or pride is holding us up. The thorn discovered too late that the axe waits its appointed time. When it falls, the difference between living roots and lifeless ones will be seen.

Dear reader, it is better for us to bend beneath the hand of God than to stand unyielding when His plow comes.