Silence And Sin, Strength And Summer

Every season of the year has its joys and its challenges. But

God has ordained them all for the benefit of His creation.

And every season of our lives has its joys and its challenges.

Yet again God has ordained all these for the benefit of His

people.

Every season of the year is important. The earth needs the

spring rains and gentle sun as tender plants germinate. It

needs the chill of autumn as growth cycles are completed

and harvests are brought in. Creation needs winter so that it

might rest and replenish from the snows. And then there is

summer – when the heat of the day and the labor of the

farmer are most intensive, so that growth can take place.

God has ordained all seasons for creation, and all are

necessary.

But your life and mine has its seasons, too. Our lives are

lived out in different modes, and each one has its own

special challenge. Sometimes we may feel quite springlike:

creative, energetic, dynamic. We may feel as though

everything is really bursting and nothing can stop us! A

springtime, refreshing and wonderful.

Or we may feel wintry: dormant, quiet, ready to hibernate.

Most of us get to the place from time to time where we just

need to sit and be quiet. Winter in your life might be a time

to go off and plan; or it may just be a time to go off, period.

Pogo Possum said it in an old cartoon, “Sometimes I sets

and thinks, and sometimes I just sets.” That’s winter in your

life.

Or maybe it is autumn for you. You are settled and doing

what you love to do, and all’s right with the world. You have

said “Yes” to the opportunities that grab you, and have said

“No” to those that do not capture you. You have established

a way of life. Autumn is a wonderful life season; it means

that you have made peace with who you are. If that’s you,

praise God and be thankful.

But it may be that for you it is not spring, with its dynamic

growth; not winter, with its time to reflect; nor autumn, with its

satisfied routine. It may be that for you it is summer, and in

summer the heat of the day and the turbulence of keeping

yourself together are too much. Too much; and your

strength is failing.

I don’t do summer very well. I have a problem with summer.

Summer for me is the season of confusion and conflict;

summer is the time of struggling to balance too many things

and deal with too many pressures. I don’t do summer very

well. I have a simmering summer season in my life.

Every summer I find that I have to do a balancing act that is

often very confusing and very frustrating. First, although

everybody is talking about vacation, the routine work of the

church has to go on. There is no stopping it. The first thing I

am going to do when I get to heaven is to ask the Lord if He

really had to put a Sunday in every single week! It would

have been nice to have had an occasional break.

Beyond the routine, human needs go on and actually even

intensify in the summer. People’s needs do not subside just

because the calendar says it is summertime; in fact, they

actually become greater. Many times I’ve been called back

from some trip because one of our frail elderly members had

succumbed. The hot weather has something to do with that.

But beyond the routine work and the intensified human

needs, I find summer frustrating because there are things

that need to be done, but church leaders are away,

committees cannot get quorums, key workers are out of

place, and we spin our wheels, with lots of effort but little to

show for it. Summer can be very frustrating!

Plus I do want to balance in my family’s need for time away; I

must balance in the work that has to be done on the house

and the yard; and I must balance in other needs, like the

need to study or the need to plan, all of it in the blistering

heat and the sweltering humidity, when I would really rather

sip lemonade in the shade! Summer is confusing,

frustrating, and a huge problem. I don’t do summer well.

But then isn’t that a picture of what happens for many of us

in our lives? We have summer seasons in our hearts. We

have times in which we find ourselves confused, battered,

pushed, pulled in a host of directions, and, in the end,

immensely unsatisfied. Don’t you feel yourself weakened

and worn, wishing you could get away, but you can’t? Tired