Lemons.
Sometimes life hands you lemons, sometimes life doesn’t hand you anything at all so what are we to squeeze to get lemonade? The food industry has it down well, preservatives and artificial flavors and BINGO you’ve got yourself a drink AND a meal. Spiritually I’m wrestling with the hand I’ve been dealt, I suppose you could say I feel like I deserve a “break” after nearly a decade of putting my heart and soul into something that has given little in return. I’m talking about the music industry, but this has played a good deal of the way I’ve felt spiritually in the past few years. It’s all connected for me, it overflows into one another to create what essentially has become who I am as a songwriter and a person.
The dry seasons are very dry, I get parched and sometimes all I’m asking for is a couple of lemons and rarely, if ever, get them. Sometimes I ask myself, “perhaps if I came from a family of money?” then at least I’d have some capital to do something with these dreams of mine. These are my real thoughts, unadulterated to myself, to God and now to you. Why am I telling you this? Why am I even thinking these things? Because, I feel like I deserve something more and “deserve” is a dangerous word; let’s be real, I deserve death. I’m a dirty rotten sinner, I’ve done things in my short life I regret and that I’m not proud of so why on earth do I deserve lemons? The real answer is, I got ‘em and I keep getting them and they just come in the form of something I’m not looking for.
In my search for financial support to give life to a dream, I ran to God when I was most desperate and not because I saw him as my great provider. I ran to him because I wanted to tap his resources without having to get too involved, and it just didn’t work. So I’d cry out, “where are you God?” when I need you the most. The startling truth was, his gentle whisper was lost in the noise of my life and pursuit for just that one thing that could help me get to where I need to be. When I finally slow down to listen, I can hear his gentle whisper and it seems his concerns aren’t quite what mine are. I can hear him as he says, “have I not fed you each day of your life? have I not clothed you when it is cold outside? have I not given you shelter when the storms have raged through? have you not seen or received the grace I freely gave?”
Tears begin to stream, and shame sweeps across my body like the blood was running out of me. Here I was looking for every resource I could find, networking for every relationship to lead to another, and the King of Kings was right there trying to get my attention all along. He who controls everything, he who created every last thing including you and me and I wasn’t even paying attention. You see, the lemons I was looking for had come in the form of grace because without that I wouldn’t even be alive. We forget so quickly the rudimentary things because they have become so natural and it’s the same with even the supernatural.
Do I want to succeed, to make people proud, to provide or be able to stand on my own two feet? Absolutely. But I can’t stand if I have not first lived, and my Jesus has given me that life to live. As I wage war against my flesh each day, I see closer the Savior who came to save us but also to be glorified. So with these lemons, I urge you to follow the call he has placed on all our lives and he will provide all that we need.
James 1 says “26 If anyone thinks he is religious but does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this persons religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” Lemons are to sweet anyway, how you them apples?
Seek First His Kingdom my friends.
