Take Captives!
Growing in our garden is a huge – I mean huge – Cecile Brunner rose bush. If
you remember your rose catalogue, you will remember that Cecile Brunner is a
delicate, pink miniature rose. It is sometimes known as the button-hole rose.
Miniature blossom it may be but the bush is twice as tall as a tall man and at
least three times that wide.
We have cut off a few nuisance branches from time to time but never seriously
pruned it.
Came the day it was a mass of flowers, a perfection of tiny roses. I could pick
a bucketful and you would not see where I have been.
But up close and personal, something was wrong.
Every rose was awash with tiny thrip, a little insect that draws moisture from
every petal and scars every blossom. You could hardly see them but if they were
left unchecked they would destroy the vigour and beauty of every rose.
No matter how big the bush, it could be utterly defaced by an enemy that is
almost invisible.
I attacked the spoilers systematically and energetically the way Paul said we
should attack the enemy.
He said the enemy begins in the mind and the cure must begin there too. He said
we need to take captives. Listen; ‘… we take captive every thought to make it
obedient to Christ.’ 2nd Corinthians 10:5.
Elizabeth Price