The Gift of Summer

Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Ecc 4:6

“Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June.” (AI Bernstein)

Spring was anything but relaxing if you lived in the path of a busy tornado season or had kids in school. Memorial Day unofficially marked the beginning of summer when theoretically the pace of life slows down as kids are out of school, church activities get reduced and the days are longer. Theoretically was the word I used, reality tells a different story.  The days of yesterday, when you lazily stretched out on the grass to watch white, fluffy clouds move overhead seem to be a fairy tale or at best, the figment of someone’s imagination.

For those who live in the North American region, June famously welcomes the return of those mystical little creatures called Hummingbirds. These unique little birds return after a restful vacation in South America after a long winter. Flying thousands of miles, they return to the same geographical area each year, and being gifted with amazing memories, they remember every flower and feeder they’ve visited. They are true lovers of sugar as they go straight for the glucose. These little birds eat more than twice their body weight daily, so, they are not good role models if you want to lose weight.

Hummingbirds’ survival depends upon their staying in a nearly constant state of motion. These little “charmers,” (that is what a group of Hummingbirds is called), hover over their food with wings fluttering at 50 times per second and heartbeats racing at 1,260 times per minute. There is just something relaxing about watching hummingbirds dart in and out at their feeder.

God made the hummingbirds to be in a constant state of motion but he didn’t make you or me that way. God’s final stroke to his creative masterpiece called creation was simply “rest”. The other acts of creation have the description “And God saw that it was good” but on His final act of creation He didn’t call it good, He called it “holy.”

What a difference this one day of rest should make in our rhythm of life.  “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so, on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” (Gen 2:2-3) John Lubbock writes, “Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”

You can name a lot of reasons but somehow we tend to live with a hummingbird mentality, always in constant motion. Instead, God offered a model or better yet, a God-given gift of rest. Somehow, we have been convinced that to survive we have to be in a constant state of motion. The Psalmist reminds us in Psalm 74, “But God is my King from long ago; he brings salvation on the earth…The day is yours, and yours also the night; you established the sun and moon. It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter.”

Living at full speed can be physically draining, emotionally taxing, and spiritually deadening. Slowing down opens our soul more fully to God’s presence. David understood how the soul needed rest and God’s desire to give his children. “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” (Psalm 23:2-3a)

“The reason speed does violence against our souls is because our souls were meant to be tended to. There’s a preciousness, a tenderness to our souls that requires a slow observation. And so, when we’re living at this chaotic pace, we don’t give our souls the opportunity to rest, to breathe, to receive the nutrients from God that we desperately need.” (Rich Villodas)

Summer months can be a reflective time to focus on God’s gift of rest. “So, they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place.”—Mark 6:32. Summer months can bring something magical if we simply slow life’s pace down to spend a little time reflecting, pondering, or meditating. “It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.” (Maud Hart Lovelace)

The summer evening harmony of crickets, cicadas, and laughing children relaxes the soul and welcomes a place where you can “Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him” Psalm 37:7a

The warm balmy summer evenings give you a place to release your problems and anxiety as you are reminded, “The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.” (Song of Songs 2:11-12)

The same summer months that bring the hummingbirds also bring the weeds in the garden and seemingly never-ending mowing. What you do with it becomes the question. Margaret Guenther reminds us, “Our waiting on God, then, requires ongoing attentiveness if it is to be more than an empty exercise in passivity. When we pay attention, our awareness is sharpened.”

Summer! What a great time to spread your blanket on top of the freshly mowed grass and spend a little time just pondering this beautiful creation of God. “A heart at peace gives life to the body,” (Pr 14:30a)

God is great!