Frank Almonte

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Illustration by Cornelia Li

Summer, wrote A. W. Tozer, is “the period of full power when life multiplies, and it is hard to believe that it can ever end.”

But summer’s lease truly hath all too short a date. So here at the beginning of the season, it’s worth asking: What do I really want this summer to be like? How can this season be one where I grow with God and with my neighbor?

That’s an invitation, not an imposition. Christian leaders who read CT can imagine as well as we can the early summer sermon they’re uninterested in hearing: “Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! … [I]t stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.” It’s a wise (and inspired!) proverb, but the assumed application has always sounded unpleasant: Work harder for Jesus! Trade your summer rest for ministry!

Sure, some of us may need the proverb’s admonition to get up off our beds. But many CT readers are already fairly antlike in the summer: volunteering at Vacation Bible Schools, arranging summer mission trips and service projects, picking up the slack as fellow church volunteers travel… And for many Christians, summer is not mostly a time of recreation but of finding seasonal work to supplement a meager income.

The question we want to ask this June, then, is not: What more can you add this summer? Rather, it’s this: What are you looking forward to? What brings you joy about this season? And how can it be more of a blessing to you and to others? What provisions come in summer that can be harvested for a lifetime?

Perhaps you love summer’s longer days. Seize them! It’s much easier to start or rekindle a habit of morning prayer when awakened by songbirds …

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