The dog days of summer

Webster defines “dog days” as...

1 : the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere;

2 : a period of stagnation or inactivity.

Well, that certainly describes the weather right now--HOT, soggy, stagnant. When you go outside, the stifling temperature nearly takes your breathe away and tends to induce a lazy, slow, sleepy attitude complete with brain fog and the overwhelming desire for inertia! Our sweet old dog, Moses, takes the heat particularly hard: he sleeps the day away and looks at me as if I were the devil incarnate when I rouse him long enough for him to plod outside and quickly use the backyard facilities (if you know what I mean!). When you look up "dog days of summer" in the dictionary, you will find a picture of Moses... resting.

But how easily we can be inexorably drawn into the dog days in our lives. Exhaustion, discouragement, complacency, inertia, apathy, mindless routine, busyness--each of these in it's own way can dull our senses, harden our hearts, and lull us into the sleep of disobedience or disengagement. We lazily fail to read God's Word or to seek to hear His voice. Eventually, we tell ourselves, we'll get back on track. But then one day leads to the next that leads to the next... Or we forget to pursue relationships with those we love, falling into mindless, dulling routines that conspire to drive us farther and farther apart. Or perhaps we just refuse to do that which we know the Lord is calling us to do--just too much effort right now or too much time involved or too uncomfortable to change our cherished routine.

In C.S. Lewis' brilliant book, The Screwtape Letters, the senior tempter, advises the junior tempter on the enormous danger to humans of these kind of dog days that occur in our lives--in a time we call "middle age." Screwtape encourages Wormwood that" The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it – all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition. If, on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger. Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is ‘finding his place in it’, while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth, which is just what we want. You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and the old."

So what is the solution? Well, for one thing, we need to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and refuse to give in to inertia and laziness! We need to remind ourselves of the brevity of life and that God has given us this one short opportunity on this planet to make a difference for all of eternity. "Only one life; twill soon be past. Only what's done for Jesus will last." It sounds so trite, but we need to remind ourselves of it daily! We don't get a do-over in this life--it's now or never. Praise God one day we will have all of eternity, but until He takes us home, we need to be awake and alert and active. We need to counsel our souls and tell ourselves that God did not put us here to lazily play around on a playground but to be engaged in a battle on the battlefield!

Heb. 4:7 declares " again He appoints a certain day, 'Today,'...'Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.'" When He tells us to do something, we need to do it TODAY! How often have I failed to do just that! God whispers His desire that I write a note of encouragement or spend time with a loved one or start of finish some difficult or distasteful task... and I procrastinate or forget or just plain old refuse, thinking "I'll get to that eventually" and eventually never comes. Forgive me Lord! Help us to hear Your voice and when we hear it, to take action today so that our hearts will not be hardened but made softer and more pliable to You and Your will.

2 Cor.6:2 tells us "For God says 'at just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.' Indeed, the right time is now. Today is the day of salvation." God is the eternal I AM. He is always in the present; He is always with us and in us today, right at this moment. So He calls us to respond today. "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Ps. 118:24--one of my very favorite verses). Again, today He calls us to rejoice.

We may be hot. We may be tired. We may discouraged. We may be overwhelmed. But today is the only today we will ever have, and today is the only today we will ever have the opportunity to rejoice in the Lord and give Him thanks, even in the midst of the dog days of our lives.

What is God calling you to do or to pursue today? Whatever it is, He has promised in His Word "for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Phil. 2:13) He can help us overcome the inertia or busyness or laziness or whatever obstacle our dog days have erected to prevent us from obedient action today. As C.S. Lewis once wrote, "You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." It's time to wake up and dream a new dream with the Lord! It's not too late--just start today!