Devotions from Mark Buchanan’s book, Spiritual Rhythm

I have always liked summer season best and spiritually it is a season of  warmth, fruit, light, rest, wonder, joy. It is a time of sheer delight in God and what He’s made. It is so opposite of winter and is a time when God and others are so intimately near, light and life surround us, and mourning seems to flee away.  Life seems effortless, and joy and light shine everywhere. We have energy to spare. It’s very much like when we first come to the Lord and everything seems right, bright, new etc. God is at the center.  But we have to guard our heart in summer against the wiles of nostalgia .  We may try to cling to summer’s beauty and resent when it fades.  And we all know that the past was never as clean and bright as we remembered it.  We can get wistful and bitter when the past won’t return.  The past is actually only reconciled through thankfulness, forgiveness, acceptance and repentance. Christians can be especially nostalgic about the church of our first summertime season. We think of it a holier and truer than wherever we are now. We remember the former glory most vividly and may want it to return. Memory is a gift to tell us where we are, and where we need to go but it can also be a trap where we can get stuck. Let us be quiet and ask Him to search our hearts for any places we are stuck or hurts that need His healing so we can move on.