It's Raining, It's Pouring... But God is NOT Snoring!

“Do not think, believer, that your sorrows are out of God’s plan; they are necessary parts of it.” – C.H. Spurgeon

Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries is a song written by Ray Henderson and Lew Brown and first published in 1931. It was recorded many times, most notably by Ethel Merman, Rudy Vallee, Judy Garland, Jaye P. Morgan, Doris Day, and Johnny Mathis. It was also the opening song – performed by Ben Vereen – in the Broadway musical, Fosse.

Henderson and Brown’s creation was labeled a “protest song” because it poked holes in the theory, at the height of the Great Depression, that everyone in America was living the so-called “good life.” The song title soon became a catchphrase throughout the country, sometimes with the words “a bed of roses” or “all peaches and cream” being substituted for “a bowl of cherries.”

Jesus Himself debunks this unrealistic approach to life by promising His disciples that “in the world you will have tribulation.” However, He didn’t stop there. The rest of John 16:33 goes like this: “but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

The point that Charles Spurgeon – and Jesus Christ – are making is that God uses life’s trials and tribulations to refine us and make us stronger. We’ve all heard the illustration about how trees that have not been tested by high winds often snap in half or are uprooted entirely when a storm hits. However, trees that have previously endured tropical tempests usually remain intact because they either established deep roots or – like palm trees – learned to bend but not break.

By the way, not all of Ray Henderson’s songs were hits. In fact, I am sure that he had quite a few clunkers in there, too. However, he and Lew Brown kept at it and wound up striking musical gold with Bye Bye Blackbird, Has Anyone Seen My Girl, I’m Sitting on Top of the World, The Birth of the Blues, It All Depends on You, The Best Things in Life Are Free, You’re the Cream in My Coffee, and Button Up Your Overcoat.

The last song in that “hit parade” is especially telling because of the following verse…

“In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” Matthew 5:45 (NLT)

- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President