Find The Strawberries…What?
I’ve had a lot of people asking what #FindTheStrawberries means, so I figured I’d explain.
I made a post about this before, but to be fair that was almost four years ago, so it’s about time I revisited the story since it has, since then, essentially become my catchphrase.
A Parable Revisited
It all begins with a parable:
There was once a man walking through the jungle. Suddenly, a vicious tiger jumped out and started chasing after him, snarling and biting and doing all it could to eat him up. Just as it was about to catch him, he came to a cliff. Without thinking, he jumped off the cliff and grabbed onto a vine, hanging on for dear life. If only he could climb to the bottom of the cliff, perhaps he could escape...
But when he looked below him, to his horror he saw another tiger waiting at the bottom of the clifface, staring up at him and licking its lips. True, the tiger could be a friendly tiger, but he didn’t want to test his chances. All he could do was hold on for dear life. Maybe the tigers would leave...
But then, at that moment, two mice—one white and one black—came out of a crevice in the cliff and began to gnaw away at the vine. In no time, they would sever his lifeline and send him plummeting to his death.
Taking his eyes away from the mice and away from the tigers, the man calmed his mind and began to observe those things around him. To his surprise, he saw a cluster of beautiful, ripe strawberries growing out of the cliff-face. He plucked one of the strawberries and ate it. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted.
The Parable Explained
Now, if I were telling you this story in person, now would be the moment where I would ask you to run through the story again in your mind and try to personally decipher its meaning. I would allow you to ponder it for a minute or two. If I were feeling especially feisty that day, I would not explain it to you at all, “so that ‘they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand’” (Mk 4:12).
However, since we are not in person, I will explain it to you, if you have not figured it out for yourself. Every aspect of the story has significance:
The first tiger, chasing from behind, represents our past. We take it with us wherever we go, and oftentimes we have something we are trying to get away from, yet just can’t seem to escape. It threatens to consume us, threatens to overtake us, threatens to overwhelm us. It influences our actions and forces us to the edge of a precipice, where a choice is to be made.
The second tiger, waiting down below, represents our future. It could be a nice tiger, but most likely not. We all have hardship awaiting us in our future, and the future is an unpredictable mystery to us. Sometimes we thing that if we can hold on long enough, we will be able to avoid it, but as each second passes, we grow closer and closer to meeting it.
The vine, then, is our lifeline. We cling to it as desperately as we can, hanging somewhere between the past and the future—in the present.
The mice represent time—the white mouse represents day, and the black mouse represents night. Day and night are continually gnawing away at our lifeline, and one of them—who can say which?—will one day send us falling to meet the tiger down below. No one knows what tomorrow brings, but time is quickly ticking by, with day and night eating away at what life we have.
The strawberries, then, represent the grace of God—little gifts that we often overlook, yet which we would notice and appreciate more than ever if we ever took the time to simply look around us. The man in the parable recognizes that his life is about to be taken from him—there is nothing he can do to prevent it—and in the moment, he actually takes the time to look around him, recognizing that each moment could be his last. When he does so, he is surprised to find the strawberries, which are out-of-place in his given situation yet wonderfully enticing. When he bites into the strawberry, he recognizes that it could be the last thing he ever tastes, and so he cherishes it more than he ever would have before. In this single moment, he takes nothing for granted, but appreciates even the smallest of gifts that God has given him.
#FindTheStrawberries
This, then, is what I mean when I tell people to “Find the Strawberries”: All good things come from the gracious hand of a loving God, so we shouldn’t take them for granted. In the wake of my father’s death, I think this message is all the more important: You never know when something will be taken away, so we should strive to appreciate what God has given us at the precise moment when He gives them, lest we fail to acknowledge the many gracious gifts bestowed upon us by the Creator of the universe.
My father passed from this life unto eternity in but a few seconds’ time. We were having a great time laughing and joking one moment, and a few seconds later he was gone. This is the case with all of us; we all hang on our lifeline, and one day one of those mice is going to snip it and send us catapulting to our death below. The question, then, is whether or not you will appreciate the life God has given you right here and right now.
So often, people are so focused on their struggles and their baggage in the past that they come up with excuses for present circumstances or complain about every possible trivial thing or try to excuse their vices by attributing it to things that were beyond their control from the past. In a way, their past becomes their identity. On the flip side, many people are so anxious about controlling the future that they endlessly stress, endlessly struggle, endlessly work, yet never truly live. Both of these, I think are wrong ways to live.
It is true: the past has led us to where we are, but stressing about it cannot help our present situation.
It is true: the future matters, but stressing about it will not keep us from one day having to face it.
Either way, stress and anxiety and fear are of no benefit in the present moment. All they will do is make your hands sweaty and make you lose your grip on the vine. Oftentimes, in our struggle for control, we forget that there is a sovereign God who is in control, who has our lives in His hands. Yet this is something we cannot afford to forget. And so I propose that we ought to keep the past in mind and live with a futuristic mindset, yet we need to live in the present. Don’t ignore the past and don’t ignore the future, but don’t let them define you. Rather, allow your past experience draw you into your future hope, knowing that the one who created you and preserved you in the past is the one who promises you a future with Him unto eternity if only you place your faith in His Son, Jesus Christ—trusting Him with your life.
If you can do this, then you can finally live in the present: You can breathe and take in all that is around you, and you can find all the strawberries God has given you—from greatest to least. When you recognize how precious life is, you will see all the little things that we so often take for granted, yet are in and of themselves little gifts from God that testify to His ever-abundant grace.
By finding the strawberries, we grow in gratitude for the Giver of all good things. By finding the strawberries, we learn to appreciate the grace of God and to not take it for granted. By finding the strawberries, we learn to fall in love with our Creator all over again.
That beautiful sunset after a rainy day? A strawberry.
That first inhale of cold wind on an early winter’s day? A strawberry.
The ability to open your eyes when you wake up? A strawberry.
The presence of companions to offer their shoulder to cry on during your days of grieving? A strawberry.
The sweetness of a ripe strawberry? A strawberry.
Cool water running down your parched throat after a day of hiking? A strawberry.
Sixty-six love letters from God bound together for us to daily read and meditate upon? A strawberry.
The possession of life at all, and the privilege of living and breathing and being given an opportunity to live a life that is pleasing to God through repentance and faith and continual growth? Strawberry upon strawberry upon strawberry.
The opportunity to know the sovereign God of all creation, to know that He has revealed Himself to us by grace? Strawberries in excess.
The smell of roses in a bouquet on the table next to you? A strawberry.
There are strawberries all around us, my friends. Our gracious God has not been frugal in His giftings, but has given us in excess, not merely to meet our needs, but to enhance our enjoyment. Do not take a single thing for granted in life, but go out and find the strawberries, my friends.
