Years ago, 1997 to be exact, the boys’ basketball team that I coached, along with the girl’s team, had been invited to play in the NACA High School National Championship Tournament in Dayton Tennessee. We departed Atlanta, Georgia with a school bus full of kids, excitement, and anticipation. What could go wrong? We stopped to gas up the bus after crossing over the Tennessee State line at a Texaco station. My assistant coach, Bobby “Diesel” Wilkinson, had the duty of filling up the bus. As I walked out of the storefront of the station, Bobby met me with the statement “I just filled the bus up with diesel fuel”. You would have expected me to say, “Thanks Bobby!”, if indeed it was a diesel engine! Bobby had filled, I mean slap full, that fuel tank with diesel fuel! Now here we are, 24 kids, a bus that wasn’t going anywhere, at a Texaco station in Tennessee. To make a very long story short we were able to get the bus towed, the tank emptied, filled with the correct fuel, and back on the road again. It took over 5 hours! The kids made the best of it in this bad situation, they bought tons of junk food, listened to music, and played hacky sack.

There is a well-known phrase, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” The concept is that when bad things happen in your life, take control and make that situation as good as you possibly can… “You can do it!”

I agree in part with that statement. However, how do you make “lemonade” when things go really bad? How do you sweeten up life when it is out of your control? If you have lived long enough, you know that life can be full of lemons and often not enough sugar to make “lemonade”. When a loved one dies, when you lose your job, your home, your health, when you suffer, where is the “sugar”?

Christians know, but often forget, that we live in a fallen world. A world full of heartache, pain, and suffering. “Lemons” are unavoidable! As Christians, we need to understand that we are called to suffer because Christ suffered.

“For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)

Often, however, we tend to think of the suffering Christ merely as his physical suffering for our sin on the cross. Yet scripture gives us insight that Christ not only suffered physically on the cross but he also experienced the pain and heartache of what it is like to be human.

One example is the story of Lazarus:

Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”  When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”  Jesus wept.  (John 11:32-35)

Isaiah 53:3 describes Jesus’ time on earth this way:

He was despised and rejected by men,
    a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Knowing that we will have suffering, how then are we to deal with the “lemons” in our life? Are we supposed to make “lemonade” out of all the lemons? Can we make “lemonade” from all of life’s lemons?

Christ being our example, shows us how we are to deal with the “lemons” in our lives… we are to eat them. In other words, instead of trying to make our situations sweeter in our strength, we are to rely on and trust in the Lord during sufferings as we go through them… with Him.

An example of Christ’s suffering and how he went through it can be found in the Garden before His crucifixion:

“Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:42–44)

The example that Jesus set for us while we go through our suffering is to pray and pray more earnestly. It is during those times of solemn prayer when we put our trust in a Sovereign God, the God who is working in our lives to accomplish His will, that we can eat the lemons.

There is a Hymn I remember singing as a young boy called every day with Jesus that reminds me of this.

Every day with Jesus
Is sweeter than the day before
Every day with Jesus
I love Him more and more,
Jesus saves and keeps me
And He’s the One I’m waiting for;
Every day with Jesus
Is sweeter than the day before.

God, through our sufferings, produces something much better than lemonade!

^“ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,  and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,  and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:3-5)