Making lemons out of lemonade
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Wait what? Don’t you have that backwards?
You can’t make lemons out of lemonade, that’s not the way it works.
I say we can and as Christ’s followers we must.
Currently, I’m into the guava infused lemonade. I enjoy telling myself, “It’s the ‘right’ kind of sugar.” Whatevs.
I truly enjoy the magic of an iced cold, freshly squeezed, real glass of lemonade. Romantically, I could be drinking it by the pool (which we used to have), sitting on the front porch after mowing the yard or overlooking Lake Tahoe from the balcony of our favorite rented cabin, number 83. However, its done, it reminds me of simpler days when grandma (not mine though, she was a whiskey sour kind a woman) would bring a tray of iced lemonade for all your neighborhood friends to share.
“Yeah, yeah, I know all about lemonade,” you say. “But, what about the crazy notion of making that beautiful cloudy yellow, lightly pulped, heavenly drink (sorry I drifted off on lemonade again) back into a lemon.”
Oh, yeah. See it would be nice to think that we could just share this illustrious, sugary, wonder of God with friends by taking the shortcut of handing it to them and saying, “here, drink this, its good and it took a lot of work to make it, but I want to make it easy for you so you’ll like it (and me).”
We all know how easy it is to grow lemons right?
WikiHow says anyone can do it. It should only take five to fifteen years, or sometimes… never. [according to WikiHow: Keep in mind that trees that come from seeds are not identical to the parent tree that they came from. Sometimes, the fruit that the new saplings produce is of a lesser quality. Other times, they do not produce edible fruit at all. This does not prevent the young tree from being visually pleasing. Keep this in mind when growing your tree. – https://www.wikihow.com/Plant-a-Lemon-Seed]
Jesus said, “A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit.” When it comes to people being discipled and growing in their faith, the point of making lemons out of lemonade isn’t to share a refreshing drink by oversimplifying the process, it’s showing people how to grow their own lemon tree and produce their own deliciously tart, tasty fruit (sidenote: I eat lemons right off the tree, sometimes peel and all). That takes time, right? Sometimes years, right? Christianity isn’t about mass production or mass conversion, it’s about mass process of deep change and miraculously difficult transformation. In other words, it’s still a walk and a path not a Uber and a dropoff.
I needed a lemon tree not just lemonade
Sure, when I was young, I loved receiving the cool, sweet-sour elixir of lemon. However, what I really needed was someone to show me how to grow a lemon tree, to one day see, feel, taste and completely experience my own fruit. Maybe sharing our faith isn’t just about giving a cold cup of lemonade in Jesus’ name – its about sharing the lemon seed of the gospel and demonstrating how folks can grow in their own faith.
You wanna makes some lemons outta lemonade with me? Jesus tip: “just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” – Matthew 7:20 NLT
#BeNice
Shipwrecked and floating on broken pieces
#lovetour
Reading Time: 3 minutes
That’s right! It felt like LOVETOUR 2018.
Three months ago Robin and I experienced something that has never happened to us before – I was terminated from a ministry transition plan (succession plan). Short story, the church leadership did not want to move forward with me. I mean, honestly, there have been a few times I could have, should have been fired from ministry before, mainly because I was being a turd. This was different. I wrote a blog post about What Happens When You Fail? a couple days after our last Sunday at the church.
I would love to tell you that the experience was humbling, but it felt more like humiliating. We experienced pain at levels of betrayal that we had not experienced before. I know you’re thinking, “haven’t you been in ministry awhile, this couldn’t have been your first heartbreak?” Actually, yes, this is our first major blow to our core. Go figure! I mean, Robin was raised in church, and as a Pastor’s kid she has seen a lot of crazy stuff. I wasn’t brought up in a Christian home, so yeah, I thought Churches were more… hmmm, morally responsible, and that sort of thing. However, I’ve seen plenty of situations where power and immaturity in the church has made for combustible confrontations. Thank God I never let that reflect on my love for Jesus or His love for me. Idiots happen. Bullies happen – #dealwithit.
After a few days of grieving, spinning and feeling like zombies, I started getting phone calls, emails and texts from friends. They would say, “hey, can we get together?” I would say, “sure, I’ve got some time on my hands, why not?” The first few friend meet-ups really got a earful of grief, just plain ol’ “this ain’t pretty” kinda stuff. There were a lot of tears – which is super embarrassing to have a couple of guys in a restaurant bawling, “could you please bring some more napkins,” I would say to the server. Then one by one our amazing, kind friends would do what friends do – just listened and loved on me. One friend said, “I just wanted to look you in the eyes and make sure you were okay,” (cue more tears). Come on! How much more biblical can you get than that?
It didn’t stop with just a few meals. For a solid two months I got texts, emails, phone calls and a calendar full of local friends for meals. It has been very overwhelming to receive that level of love! For forty years we’ve been on the giving end of love NOT the receiving end – not to this extreme. We have people praying for us constantly. I think that’s the only thing that has sustained us. It’s folks reminding us that they are praying. I told God, “Hey, a lot of our friends are watching out for us, you gotta come through on this one.”
#LoveTour2018
So for those of you who want to know how we are doing, we are still believing forward and restlessly leaning on the grace of God.
So to wrap up the lovetour, let me just tell you, from Robin and myself, THANK YOU for your friendship, love, kind words and prayer. You are the best! You have shown us the meaning of Sympathize with One Another.