Summer Means Growth

     I love Spring and Summer Time.  This past weekend was busy around my house.  I did a lot of work on my lawn to get it back into shape after a long winter.  Also, my wife and I purchased some new plants and flowers to enhance the property.  So we shoveled, and raked, and planted and fertilized.  It was just wonderful to step back after it was all finished and see the new look, to realize new growth will take place, to enjoy the beauty.

     Sometimes our lives need a good raking, replanting and some fertilizer as well.  Just like my front lawn after a rough winter, our lives can get a build up with the thatch of sin, or overgrown with the weeds of bad habits.  But also, sometimes we just become dormant in our spiritual lives.  It's not that there is sin or anything like that, but it's that there is no new growth.  That means we need to apply some fertilizer of God's Word and Spirit.  We need to allow Him to enter in to our lives in a new way.  We need to "come apart" from the regular activities of our lives and allow a new infusion of the Spirits grace in our life.  And you know what?  If we don't do it, God will.  But when God produces growth it's through prunning.  Prunning produces some pain at first, then growth later.  But if we don't do the things necessary to produce growth in our lives, this is what God must do.

     So, I trust that your summer is fruitful.  Take some time to let the Lord do a new work in your life.  Spend some extended times in God's Word and in prayer.  Take long walks with God and let Him stimulate your spirit in new ways.  May it be a season of growth for you.