Well, it’s June 1st! The first day of summer--sort of, anyway. Now, granted, many of us are not even close to the slightly more relaxed pace of glorious summer. In fact, right now at our home, we’re confronting both the joys, but crazy busyness, of high school graduation activities and of wedding planning, as well as the challenges of exams. So at the moment, the hope of summer seems like it’s looming impossibly far off in the distance.
But it isn’t. Warmth and freshly cut green grass and iced tea and sand in your toes and melting popsicles and mountain peaks and a good, long book... they are coming. If we can just hang in there a few more days! Ahh.
And so on June 1st, we’re at least pondering the imminent approach of summer. If you’re anything like me, then you thank the Lord for the promise and hope both of summer’s beauty and it’s more relaxed schedule. Time unharnessed from rushing and deadlines and lengthy to-do lists. Time to listen. Time to thank. Time to ponder. Time to enjoy family and friends. Time to be amazed at God’s creation.
Summer’s danger for all of us, however, is that with this season’s beauty and pace, we can fall away from God rather than fall closer into Him. Summer can tempt us to laziness and lassitude. Bible studies are over till the fall; Sunday school may be on hiatus. The beaches and mountains beckon, and we can lapse into indifference towards the Word which leads to an increasingly weak and shallow soul.
I loved these comments from John Piper about the promise and peril of summertime. I included these last year about this time, but I needed to be reminded of them again:
"Every season is God's season, but summer has a special power. Jesus Christ is refreshing, but flight from Him into Christ-less leisure makes the soul parched. At first it may feel like freedom and fun to skimp on prayer and neglect the Word, but then we pay: shallowness, powerlessness, vulnerability to sin, preoccupation with trifles, superficial relationships, and a frightening loss of interest in worship and the things of the Spirit.
Don’t let summer make your soul shrivel. God made summer as a foretaste of heaven, not a substitute. If the mailman brings you a love letter from your fiancé, don’t fall in love with the mailman. That’s what summer is: God’s messenger with a sun-soaked, tree-green, flower-blooming, lake-glistening letter of love to show us what he is planning for us in the age to come — “things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9).
Don’t fall in love with the video preview and find yourself unable to love the coming reality. Jesus Christ is the refreshing center of summer. He is preeminent in all things (Colossians 1:18), including vacations, picnics, softball, long walks, and cookouts. He invites us in the summer: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). This is serious summer refreshment.
Do we want it? That is the question.
Christ gives himself to us in proportion to how much we want his refreshment. “You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13, RSV). One of the reasons to give the Lord special attention in the summer is to say to him, 'We want all your refreshment. We really want it.'"
I love that, because summer is one of God’s choicest gifts! The Lord gives us in summertime the gift of His startling creation in all it’s splendor as well as the irreplaceable gift of a little more time. How will we use those never to be replaced moments?
Let’s determine together, by the grace of God, that by the end of this summer, we will know and love the Lord more dearly and follow Him more nearly than we did at the beginning. And that will only happen if we spend time with him in His Word. He’s waiting to speak to us and reveal Himself to us. Will we listen?
Just as He did when Jesus prepared a hot breakfast on the beach for the hungry disciples in John 21 (this after their all night fishing debacle), He has breakfast for us in His Word. And every single morning, the Lord of the universe says to each of us, “Hey are you hungry? How about some breakfast? I know you’re tired. I know you’re feeling overwhelmed. I know you messed up yesterday. But how about some fresh forgiveness? How about some warm strength? How about some delicious grace and power and provision for today? Aren’t you hungry? Won’t you come and join the Great I Am for breakfast?”
He’s waiting for us this summer--ready and available every single day to give us all the mana we need for that day’s needs. Ready to renew our strength, fill us with hope, teach us His ways, and walk with us through whatever we’ll be facing.
Might we daily this summer choose to spend time feasting upon His Word and fellowshipping with our Savior. I want to come to the end of these three glorious months ahead of us knowing Him more clearly, loving Him more dearly, and following Him more closely. He’s waiting... and He has your breakfast ready. Will we come to Him and eat?
To God--our Creator and Giver of summer's gifts, and our Word--be all the glory.
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