Rest and re-creation

Summer is here!  Well, at least as I write this article, the sun is streaming down and we have just (enjoyed?) some of the hottest days of the year so far.

  We British are a perverse lot!  We spend most of the year looking forwards to the summer, bemoaning the winter chills, the dark winter nights - and then, when the much awaited season does arrive, we are still not satisfied!  It is either too cold for the time of year, or it is too hot.  It is either too wet or we have a water shortage.  We are never totally satisfied!

  Summer is really a great season of opportunities.

  The light evenings and warmer days give us the opportunity to spend more time out of the house, to enjoy more of the open air and the company of friends and neighbours - barbecue smoke permitting, of course.  This summer we have even taken the opportunity of having a Sunday evening service out of doors.

  The holiday season gives us the opportunity to visit new and different places.

  But, above all, summer gives us the opportunity to take time out just 'to be' - to have time to slow down and reflect on our lives, our relationships with one another and with God.

  As the 'busyness' of the rest of the year begins to wind down with the exam season ending, schools breaking up and even church activities slipping into the summer break, we are given the opportunity for re-creation. 

  All of us need the opportunity to recharge our batteries, to have times of recreation and re-creation, so that we can be refreshed and renewed in our faith as well as in our physical energy levels.  

  Sometimes we have to take deliberate steps in order to ensure that we make the most of these opportunities rather than letting them slip by.

  Jesus knew well the need to take the opportunity for 're-creation' and refreshment.  We are told how he deliberately took himself off to the hills to pray and how he took trips out on to the lake with friends to escape the hurly burly of life.

  It is not too late to think about how you are going to make the most of the opportunities that the summer will bring for you.  Are there people that you would benefit from seeing or a place that you have been meaning to visit?  Is there a book that you have been meaning to read? 

  Summer is a unique time.  There are no great festivals like Christmas and Easter which channel our thoughts and actions.  Summer is the opportunity to use the freedom of the space that God gives us in his creation and in our lives to be at rest and to grow in him.   

  How are you going to use it?

by Graham Clarke.