Summertime is winding down in the south, as families prepare to go back to school and start a brand new school year.
It seems funny to me, while I am finished with my schooling and the end of summer doesn’t mean the end copious amounts of free-time anymore, there are things about summer I miss each year.
Traffic is less; the days are longer; cold weather is nowhere to be found; the travel is more frequent; colors are brighter; skies clearer, and there is always fun to be had. I have always loved summer. I recently read a quote by Harper Lee in one of my favorite books, To Kill a Mockingbird, and I found it perfectly described my love and adoration for summer.
“Summer was our best season: It was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse, summer was everything good to eat; It was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”
In the church, summer is a time of service. While there are times of service in all seasons, summer is a popular time for mission trips to all parts of the country and world.
As I was thinking about how many people I know who took the roads and skies in route to serve and share the Good News, I thought to myself, “Am I as intentional in serving the Lord in all seasons as I have been in the summer seasons?”
By season in the above stated question, I of course mean seasons of life. Some seasons of life are like summer — bright, fun, full of sunshine and daisies. While other seasons might feel like an unending winter — cold, gloomy, no sign of sun or the life it brings everywhere.
I can’t speak for any of you, but I’ve experienced all kinds of seasons in my 24 years on earth. Seasons of spring, where I’ve seen tremendous growth in my spiritual maturity, and have been able to see the fruits of my labor. I’ve experienced seasons like fall, where it seems like the end of something good is happening, and a long winter lies ahead. Of course, I’ve experienced winters. If you can’t tell, winter is my least favorite season, where there seemed to be no hope in store.
This is where my previous question comes into play: am I as productive and intentional in my winters as I am my summers?
In the Bible, Job is one story that comes to mind. Here is Job, in the most wonderful summer of his life, when out of nowhere, Job loses everything. He loses his family, his property, his money, his good health—all of the sudden Job is in the midst a deep and dark winter.
School is quickly approaching, a time of business and, for some, outright chaos. But while school isn’t in a faraway country, it is a mission field of its own. The same goes for the workplace. You don’t have to go far to find people with different views as your own. Have you taken time to talk to your coworkers about the Lord?
Obviously there is a time and place to open up a Gospel conversation. Many of these times and places pass us by in our “summers,” when all is well and we need not.
Take notice of the people around you. Some of them may be going through a dark winter with no hope around the corner. This is the perfect time for you to share with them the Good News of our Lord and Savior and the everlasting grace and peace that He offers all who believe.
Take a look at your daily mission field as we end the summertime, and be the same missionary and intentional servant that you are in the one season as you are in all seasons.