April 9 -Angry Lemon Tree

April 9

The Angry Lemon Tree

Ge 1:12 and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Maybe lemon trees are not actually angry but you would never know it. They certainly aren’t friendly. As a kid who spent a year in Florida I used to find wild lemon trees. Even a dumb 14 year old soon learns there is no safe way to climb a lemon tree. The branches don’t have thorns like a rose bush. They have long, pointed, sharp, wooden spines that are two or three inches long. Maybe you have been able to climb one of those lemon trees but not me. The best comparison I can think of is a lemon tree is like a Hawthorne bush on steroids!

Another reason I think lemon trees are angry is the fruit they produce. I know there are lots of uses for lemons and they are a good thing, but not if you sit down and peel one and try to eat it. What kind of tree is so unfriendly it grows long spines and so mad it makes bitter fruit?

Well, Science has the answer. 90 kabillion years ago the lemon tree was a simple blade of grass. But after getting stepped on by dinosaurs some blades of grass were pretty unhappy about it so they decide to become herbs. Naturally all the grass did not become the same kind of herb. They were all too angry to agree on anything so they each went their own way. A small group of mad grass blades decided they would become catnip. It took a long time but they eventually figured out how to change into catnip. They no sooner had become catnip than saber tooth tigers began to chew on them and roll around on them. Now the grass blades that had become catnip were really mad. After a lot of planning they decided they would become lemon trees with long needle like spines and bitter tasting fruit.

What?  You don’t believe that is how it happened. Don’t take it from me. Scientists with oodles of college degrees say that is how it happened. Mr. Darwin said that is how it happened. High School biology teachers are pretty well agreed that evolution is a fact. 

The Bible says God created animals and plants and gave them the ability to reproduce after their own kind. I find it is easier to believe the Bible than the evolutionary silliness that science has accepted. 

I have a package of tiny itsy-bitsey seeds that are paper thin. They are Douglas Fir tree seeds. Just imagine that inside that thin tiny seed are all the instructions, germinating qualities, chemicals and food, that remain viable though dormant for years. Then one day when they are in moist soil, something awakens and a small sprout comes out of the ground. It has the ability to take nourishment from the ground, grow, and eventually produce a huge tree which will reproduce thousands of Douglas Fir tree Seeds.

The devotional thought for today is to remind us to be amazed that the perennial flowers we planted years ago have survived a very long cold winter. As the warmth of spring…or this year, maybe summer, warms the ground and the rains fall those plants will come to life again and grow. You do not have to wonder what you will get. If you had a deep red mum it will still be deep red this year. How is that possible? The coming of life of grass and trees and shrubs should be our constant reminder that they are the handiwork of our great God. We should be amazed every day. Stop to look at a bud on a tree, or even a single blade of new grass pushing through the soil. Then say to yourself that this is the handiwork of a sovereign God. No scientist in the world can duplicate this process in a laboratory.

There are many lies in the world today. Some of them are very clever. Some are diabolical. Others are just plain stupid. I like to put evolution in the list of stupid lies. A little piece of poetry says it as well as anything.

               First I was a tadpole, long and thin,

               Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in,

               Then I was a monkey swinging in a tree

               And now I am a Doctor with a Ph. D.                               

Please join me in delighting with all the newness of life this spring. What a fantastic show of how magnificent our God really is.

Le 26:4 Then I will give you rain in due season,

and the land shall yield her increase,

and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.  

Now scientists are warning us “The sky is falling, the sky is falling” and the glaciers will melt and the earth will become a desert of overheated land and there will not be enough crops to feed the world.

But God promised,

Ge 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime

and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and

winter, and day and night shall not cease.

As you notice new life sprouting all around you this spring take a moment to realize it is because our great God cares for and provides for us.  In addition to seeing how plants and bushes and trees come to life and flourish perhaps you will also consider how God wants you to be nourished, grow and bear fruit. May our thoughts turn heavenward as we take joy in seeing new life this spring. Maybe when it gets warm enough you can enjoy a nice cold lemonade. The lemon tree is not really angry. It is just bringing forth fruit after its own kind as God has designed it. While you enjoy your lemonade think of another tree God wants to prosper.

Ps 1:2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD;

and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers

of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season;