109. Rock Goes The Gospel - Poison - "Every Rose Has It's Thorn"

Poison lead singer Bret Michaels wrote this in response to a failed love affair with Tracy Lewis. After playing at a bar in Dallas, Texas, Michaels called his girlfriend at her Los Angeles apartment and heard a man's voice in the background. The next day the disconsolate Michaels took his acoustic guitar with him to a Laundromat and wrote the song right there. He explained in Rolling Stone June 10, 2010: "I remember using a pay phone to call this girl I was dating. We were on the road, touring in our Winnebago, and my relationship was falling apart. I still have the yellow legal pad I wrote it on. There are, like, a bazillion verses that I later edited down." On a VH1 Behind The Music special, Michaels explained the metaphoric meaning behind the rose and thorn in this song. He said that the rose was his career taking off, and the thorn was the fact that it was costing him his relationship with his girlfriend Tracy. It was released in October 1988 as the third single from Poison's second album Open Up and Say... Ahh!. It is the band's only number-one hit in the U.S., reaching the top spot on Christmas Eve in 1988 for three weeks (carrying over into 1989) and it also charted at No11 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It was a number 13 hit in the UK. "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" was named number 34 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s". It remains to this day a rock track that is regularly played on all the classic rock stations in the the US as well as the UK.

We both lie silently still
in the dead of the night
Although we both lie close together
We feel miles apart inside

Was it something I said or something I did
Did the words not come out right
Though I tried not to hurt you
Though I tried
But I guess that's why they say

Chorus:
Every rose has its thorn
Just like every night has its dawn
Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song
Every rose has its thorn
Yeah it does

I listen to our favorite song
playing on the radio
Hear the DJ say loves a game
of easy come and easy go
But I wonder does he know
Has he ever felt like this
And I know that you'd be here somehow
If I could have let you know somehow
I guess

Chorus

Though it's been a while now
I can still feel so much pain
Like a knife that cuts you the wound heals
but the scar, that scar remains

I know I could have saved a love that night
If I'd known what to say
Instead of makin' love
We both made our separate ways
But now I hear you found somebody new
and that I never meant that much to you
To hear that tears me up inside
And to see you cuts me like a knife
I guess

It is clear that this song is about a breakdown in a relationship. The song is a progressive story. A couple are together at the beginning of the song and they are not at the end. Or it is written in a reflective style, so that the person in the song who is the main character is separated right from the start and is reflecting in retrospect in to the story as it is being told. What ever way you look at it, it's a story gone bad! The pain of separation which is the "Thorn" is contrasted with the "Rose", which is in this case the joy of success. As this song is a reflection of Bret Michaels experience at the time with Poison. the theme of this song "Thorn" and "Rose" fits so well with an expereience that Paul the apostle was having and he reflects about this problem in his second letter to  the church Corinth.

Paul too had a "Rose and Thorn" life. The "Rose" was the gospel of Jesus and it was expanding. The message of Jesus was reaching out through his ministry to the ends of the earth in a fulfilment of that all Jesus had entrusted to the early church. In his day the gospel was having an impact. Paul was seeing the truth of Jesus changing lives. It was spreading outwards. You only have to have a look at the later chapters in Acts of the apostles to see the direction of Paul's ministry. It was a ministry of transformation. Here in this passage Paul is speaking of "Boasting" and of boasting in the Lord. In other words magnifying what God has done through Jesus. Paul was living the "Rose" life. Of course it was not without it's trials and persecutions, which Paul openly talks about to this church in Corinth, over two letters. Nevertheless the "Rose" of the New Testament was spreading. But with the "Rose" comes "Thorns" just like in the Poison song "Every Rose Has It's Thorn" for Paul he sees the "Thorn" as a messenger of Satan, that harasses him. Strong words indeed. But so was the harassing. It is interesting that Paul still sees this "Thorn" as a positive thing.

Many have attempted to explain what Paul's thorn in the flesh is and in doing so the miss the point. The point being that Paul saw this "Thorn" as a way in which God even more magnified the risen Jesus in Paul's life. The "Thorn" was to stop him from becoming conceited, arrogant,and crediting himself with the success of the "Rose" (The Impact of the Gospel) Paul in this passage has an altered ego, he has a broken ego that lets God have his way in his weaknesses. Paul goes on "For the Sake of Christ, then, I am content, with my weaknesses" This is one of the most telling statements of the entire ministry of Paul. He says this "Thorn" is bringing the best out in him. This is not the usual way we see "Thorns". We usually see thorns as the enemy of God and want no part of that "Thorny" life. But in Christ the "Thorn" is of use to God for by it he brings the best out in Paul and can do in us too.

So the message for this mornings devotion would be. Everyone has a "Thorn" from time to time and we rightly can identify these "thorns" as being from the Enemy of God. That does not mean that God cannot use even the "Thorn" in his economy. So that in our weakness he is exalted and glorified.

May God use your "Thorn" in the flesh today to bring further glory to himself. In your weakness you are strong. This is what Paul is saying. You don't have to be a superman or wonder-woman to be a follower of Jesus. It seems to be that the qualifications for being a follower of Jesus is brokenness, weakness and the willingness to discover transformation. It seems to me that these are all the qualifications you need to live the "Rose" life with all the thorns.