I Don’t Want Lemonade

We’ve all heard the expression:

“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.”

I’ve never really liked it.

Maybe it’s because there are some seasons of life when lemonade just isn’t going to be enough.

When tragedy strikes your family like a thief in the night, a cute saying isn’t going to hold you together. When the diagnosis comes, the relationship falls apart, the phone call changes everything, or God feels distant and you find yourself wondering where He is in the middle of it all… you’re going to need something stronger than lemonade.

You need a faith that can hold you when you don't understand what God is doing.

And the truth is, that kind of faith doesn’t usually develop when life is easy.

Faith Needs Training

The only sport I ever participated in was track.

I loved the adrenaline that would pump through my veins before the gun went off. I loved hearing the crowd cheering us on.

What I didn't love quite as much was everything that happened before the race.

The after-school practices.

The endless running.

The sore muscles.

I just wanted to run the race.

But my lungs would have given out and my legs would have turned to Jell-O if it hadn't been for all those practices.

I didn't understand it then, but the training was preparing me for the race.

The same is true spiritually.

Hebrews 12:1 says,

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

The writer of Hebrews compares our Christian journey to a race.

And notice the word endurance.

We aren't simply told to run.

We're told to run with endurance.

So how do we develop endurance?

Through training.

And sometimes, our training comes through trials.

James 1:2–4 says:

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

If I'm honest, I'm about as excited to go through a trial as I was to go to track practice.

But James is telling us something important:

Trials aren't just interruptions to our faith. They can become training grounds for our faith.

We Know Trials Are Coming

We plan ahead for almost everything.

We put money into retirement accounts because we know someday we'll retire.

We save for college because we know those cute little kids will eventually grow up.

We put money aside for Christmas because we know December is coming.

We prepare for things we know are coming.

And yet God's Word tells us, with complete certainty, that trials are coming…and so often we don't prepare for them spiritually.

We think, That will never happen to me.

Or maybe, I'll deal with it if it happens.

But what happens when it does?

If our faith has never been exercised, we may discover that we aren't nearly as prepared as we thought we were.

Trials can shake us.

They can rob our joy.

They can leave us confused, angry, exhausted, and wondering where God is.

But here's what I've learned:

We may not get to choose the trial, but we do get to choose what we do with it.

We can allow the trial to become a robber or a reaper.

A robber takes something from us.

A reaper gathers something.

And God can use even the hardest seasons of our lives to produce something in us that wasn't there before.

Endurance Doesn't Mean Pretending

Sometimes I think we've confused biblical joy with pretending.

We've somehow convinced ourselves that if we're really trusting God, we should be smiling through every trial.

I'm just so happy about this cancer diagnosis!

I'm absolutely thrilled that my body doesn't work the way it used to!

I'm overjoyed that the relationship I prayed for is falling apart!

Of course not.

God never asked us to become emotionless robots.

If He had, Scripture wouldn't contain hundreds of passages where His people cried, lamented, questioned, grieved, and poured out their hearts before Him.

Psalm 34:18 says,

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

God doesn't move away from us when our hearts are breaking.

He draws near.

Psalm 38:9 says,

“Lord, all my desire is before You; and my sighing is not hidden from You.”

He sees it all.

The tears.

The sighs.

The questions.

The disappointment.

The grief.

Nothing is hidden from Him.

And Isaiah 40:31 reminds us:

“But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary and they shall walk and not faint.”

I love that Isaiah doesn't only talk about running.

Sometimes we run.

Sometimes we walk.

And sometimes, if we're being completely honest, we're barely putting one foot in front of the other.

But God promises to meet us there too.

We can be grieving and moving forward at the same time.

Grieving Forward

I love the story of Ruth and Naomi because it gives us such a beautiful picture of what it looks like to keep moving when life has shattered everything we thought our future would be.

Naomi had moved to Moab with her husband and two sons.

And then she lost all three of them.

Imagine that grief.

She eventually decided to return to Bethlehem, and both of her daughters-in-law initially started the journey with her.

But along the way, Naomi urged them to go back.

Orpah did.

Ruth didn't.

Ruth had no promise of what was waiting for her in Bethlehem. She had no guarantee of a husband, a home, security, or an easy future.

She simply chose to keep going.

She chose to take refuge under the wings of the Lord.

And that decision changed everything.

We don't hear anything else about Orpah.

But Ruth?

Ruth became part of a story far bigger than she could have imagined.

She became the great-grandmother of King David and part of the lineage of Jesus.

Ruth didn't know that when she took her next step.

She was simply grieving forward.

And maybe that's what some of us need to do.

Not sprint.

Not pretend we're okay.

Not have everything figured out.

Just take the next step.

Grieving forward means allowing yourself to feel the loss while still trusting God with what comes next.

I still grieve over some of the things illness has added to my life.

There are things I wish God had chosen to do differently.

There are prayers I wish He had answered another way.

But I can grieve what I've lost without giving up on what God is still doing.

That distinction matters.

Because grief without surrender can eventually become bitterness.

And bitterness will keep us looking backward when God is calling us forward.

When God Says No

The apostle Paul understood this kind of grief.

He had something in his life that he desperately wanted God to remove.

Three times, Paul pleaded with the Lord about it.

And God's answer was no.

Instead, He told Paul:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Paul's response is remarkable.

He didn't pretend he was happy about his weakness.

He didn't deny that it hurt.

Instead, he learned to trust God in the middle of something God had chosen not to remove.

That's endurance.

Endurance isn't pretending you don't hurt.

It's choosing not to let your hurt have the final word.

It's saying, This is hard, Lord. I don't understand it. I wish You would change it. But I still trust You.

That's faith.

Robbers or Reapers?

Every trial will take something from us.

The question is whether it will only take something from us.

Satan would love nothing more than for our trials to rob us of our hope.

To make us question God's goodness.

To convince us that God has forgotten us.

To make us stop running altogether.

But what if, instead, we allowed God to reap something from the field of our suffering?

What if He produced deeper faith?

Greater compassion?

More dependence on Him?

A softer heart?

A stronger testimony?

A deeper understanding of His character?

James says the testing of our faith produces endurance.

Job discovered this truth too.

After losing almost everything, Job could still say:

“But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.”

Job didn't say, I understand.

He said, He knows.

And sometimes that has to be enough.

I may not know why.

I may not know how long.

I may not know what God is doing.

But He knows the way that I take.

I Want Gold

I don't want to make lemonade out of the disasters in my life.

I don't want to slap a cute Christian saying on top of my pain and pretend everything is okay.

I want something better.

I want God to take the broken pieces and do something with them that I could never have done on my own.

I want Him to take the places where I've been wounded and use them to make me more compassionate.

I want Him to take the seasons when I've felt weak and teach me what it means to depend completely on His strength.

I want Him to take the things I never would have chosen and somehow weave them into a story that brings Him glory.

I want gold.

So if you're in a trial right now, maybe you don't need to make lemonade.

Maybe you just need to keep running.

And if you can't run today, walk.

If you can't walk very far, take one step.

And if all you can do is cry, then cry.

But don't stop moving forward.

You can grieve and still have hope.

You can hurt and still trust.

You can question and still believe.

You can be broken and still be becoming.

Because the God who allowed the trial is also the God who promises to walk through it with you.

And when He is finished refining you, my prayer is that you won't look back and see a glass of lemonade.

You'll see gold.