“When life gives you lemons make lemonade.” I really hate that phrase. I hate it because that is the last thing you want to do when times are tough. 

A couple weeks ago Blake, Allison, and their son Max came up to visit Whitney and me. We went out to Ruby Tuesday’s and while we were sitting there I said, “Let Max suck on that lemon.” Max is less than a year old, so I think you know where this is headed. Whitney grabbed a lemon and squeezed it into his mouth. Unbeknownst to Max it was sour! His little face cringed and the look was priceless. We all laughed so hard because he wanted more. haha Being the good aunt that Whitney is she did it a few more times. Go Whit!

That night was really great for me because I thought about that phrase and the lemons. I thought about what REALLY happens when life gives us lemons. I guess I have to ask, “Does life even give us lemons?” I would say that it doesn’t, but to play along with that phrase I’ll give in and say yes. “So what happens when life gives us lemons.” I hear you ask. We respond. All of us respond when we get lemons. Two immediate responses are either a bitter face like Max, or like me, we take something sweet, like sugar, and pour it on the lemon before sucking it up.  Why is it that we think lemons are all we get? We can choose to do what we want with these lemons that life throws at us. I know, I know, I get that the point of the phrase is to take something bad and make it for good, but I don’t want to make lemonade. I want to take the lemon and throw it out and just eat the sugar…literally

I love that we can put something sweet on the sour things that life gives us. I love that it is what makes life worth living. If all we ever got was lemons then what’s the point. What is the point of always having to make lemonade? I would venture a guess that instead of thinking of tough times as lemons we should think of them as chocolate or something good. If the point of negative things is to make a positive then why not always see the negative as positive? I suggest never seeing lemons to needing to make lemonade, but chocolate to make…well chocolate milk or yoohoo!

Enough ranting and raving for now. I know that probably doesn’t make any sense, but whatever. I don’t care. I’m going to make some chocolate milk. To bad I don’t have Yoohoo.

Written on this cross is John 3:16. I found it in the woods on the island of Kauai where it was tied to a tree. If you are new to the world and grew up in a cave the verse says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son. That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

So what does this really mean? So what if God sent His son? I mean I’m not playing this down, but I really wonder if people know what this involved. God sent His son to die, but He really sent Him so that WE could live. The point of Jesus’ death was to give us a chance to accept His love and kindness, so that we could be the recipients of an unending grace and mercy. The love that is offered to us is truly greater than anything we can ever experience. We can’t even begin to love anyone the way God loves us.

If God loves us without regret or expectation to receive something then shouldn’t we? I recently volunteered at a homeless shelter here in town where I experienced a great picture of God’s love. Whitney and I made 8 pounds of dry spaghetti  as part of a church effort to feed the people at the shelter. We fed about 150 portions and it was encouraging to see their thankfulness.

Moving on…After we fed them Whitney and I were leaving. As I walked towards the exit this little girl run up to me. As she ran up to me I noticed how dirty she was, but the only thing that I could focus on was her smile that seemed to brighten up the whole room. She ran right to me and hugged me. It was the most innocent display of love that I have experienced in quite sometime. This little girl displayed a love that only comes from God. She didn’t expect anything in return. She simply wanted me to know how grateful she was. I was so moved by this love because it reminded me that there can be so much beauty in this world. With all the wars and violence in the world there is still enough love to brighten a room or brighten up my heart.

I am inspired to love without expecting anything. After all, it is how we have been loved by the One who died for us. The One who sent His only Son to Die not because of what it did for Him, but what it did for us. Seek out the innocent and beautiful love of our Savior.

Alright, so I left off last time discussing the nature of God. I think that is a good place to pick this blog back up.

Today I spent some time really thinking about prayer. I struggle to have a consistent prayer life, but when I do pray I love it. Many times I feel like I’m talking to a wall, but I know I’m not. What I am really learning to do is listen during my prayer times. At this time in my life I need to understand what God wants in my life. I mean, we should always want to understand what He is doing, but now I just feel lost. I feel lost because I am a knowledge person.

When I am interested in something I will consume my time trying to learn whatever that is. I will read books, watch movies, and vomit my knowledge to my poor unsuspecting wife. In this pursuit of a deeper prayer life I can’t apply any knowledge that I have because my relationship with God isn’t about my knowledge, or anything I know for that matter. The complete dependence that I seek in my prayer life comes from my heart. My heart and mind must disconnect. I must realize that God wants to touch my heart more than He wants to touch my mind. When He touches my heart I connect with Him in a much deeper way. 

I struggle with this concept because it is simple. Everything in my life is complicated from my hobbies- Adobe Flash, Dreamweaver, PSP, Drawing, Photography etc- to my job in the Coast Guard. BUT…God isn’t. Again God is love. All He wants to do is consume my heart with His love. His desire is to move into every aspect of my heart and clean out the junk that I store there. 

Isn’t that SIMPLE? I think so…I think that I will stop here for this post, and pick up next time about God moving into my heart which is about enduring.

Alright, well I guess I should back up just a little bit tobit to discuss where this revelation of simplicity began. I am a huge fan of Graham Cooke who is one of the best speakers I have ever heard. Anyway, when I first heard his teachings about 4 years ago I got so passionate about church, the body and God. I loved the possibility to let God have His way in my life. If this meant changing how I view church and how to better love people then I was all in.

About a year ago I bought some new teachings by Graham. I was a little disappointed because Graham’s teachings were so simple and basic. I wanted something with some depth and meat, and I felt like I was shortchanged. Sorry Graham I kept listening to them, but they lacked the passion that I had heard in the earlier teachings.Seven to eight months ago I went through a nightmare situation at my church, but that is another blog.

During this time I began to re-evaluate what I thought about church-life because I had been hurt pretty bad. I pretty much began to resist any form of free thinking regarding the Bible. I took a very rigid view of the Bible even though I didn’t agree with that kind of thinking. Moving on…The more rigid I took the more I put God in a box and let me just say that He didn’t like it. My passion and drive for Him was completely  smothered. It was the equivalent of putting a lit match in a toilet full of water, and I was the lit match.

What I began to understand is that God is so easy to understand. He is love. Sometimes His love feels restrictive, but in reality it is true love because it is love that guides our paths and directs our future. He can be complex when we over think Him, but it is as simple as believing what the apostle John said, “God is love”. This revelation, although simple, was life changing for me because it helped me realize that it isn’t the explanation of Goad that is amazing, it is the declaration of who He is.  The simplicity is found when we declare and proclaim God’s character and love. Who God is to us shapes how we live our lives. The message of simplicity is about proclaiming the goodness, kindness, grace, mercy and the un-ending love of God.

Stay tuned for more… 

The past three years have been some of the toughest of my life. I have been homeless, thanks hurricane Wilma, moved about 4 times, been rejected by friends and the church…the list goes on and on. Anyway, this post isn’t about those trials, but rather what I learned through them.

 The tough thing about trials, for me, is that I rarely know what I am learning until I come out on the other side. I haven’t yet learned how to focus on God in the midst of the trials. I normally get frustrated and pull away from Him because of my stubborn nature. I am not always stubborn, but when I am it is pretty difficult to change my mind. The thing that God is putting me through is only to kill the thing I want dead anyway.

Why is it that we always try to kick against the goads? -see Acts 9:5- This proverb is commonly found in greek literature and in this context signifies the senselessness and ineffectiveness of any opposition to the divine influence in his life.

We can’t fight what God wants especially when He works into changing us. His ultimate goal is to look at us and only see His son Jesus. We go through these trials because it is His way of removing the things in our lives that keep us from Him. The interesting thing is that we don’t want that junk in our lives anyway. We kick and scream during trials and sufferings because they can be miserable. I’ll be the first to admit that trials are tough emotionally, mentally, and sometimes physically, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be good.

Ok, so I know I may sound like a masochist, but I’m not. There is a place in God that we can skate through trials and sufferings because we only see His face in them. The though part is taking our selfishness and putting it behind us and picking up our cross, which is to die to ourselves. We must fight our selfish desires and look for the glory that is often buried under the rubble of our trials. That glory is the love and passion that God has for us, His kids.

To be continued…