BLBC Stirred Up "Venture into the Unknown"
With the commencement of a new school year, for parents and children, an enormous signal seems to flash “Summer is Over.” Children and Teenagers groan with phrases like, “I’m excited and at the same time I dread going back” Parents and Adults have a shift in mind that thinks, “Time to refocus.” These thoughts and words are cast into a melting pot and out of it comes, a hatred for seasons apart from summer. It’s not simply a hatred of seasons though, but a despising of the life God gives us and the changes He brings through the years. Our summer mind-set is that life is fun and enjoyable and refreshing and relaxing and full of leisure and lazy days spent outside. Our after-summer mindset is that life is uninteresting, boring, burdensome, dry and toilsome.
Where was summer for women and girls in the Democratic Republic of Congo where unruly troops committed horrendous violence against them.
Where was summer for children in India where they drink the same water they bathe and use the bathroom and wash their clothes in.
Where was summer for teenagers in Southern Guatemala who are starving to death because there is no food in their mud caked, dirt floor, thatched roof huts.
Where is there hope? At first reading, we might be moved that these people did not get a summer of vacations at Resorts with clean swimming pools, they did not get to splurge on meals at Outback Steakhouse with refreshing Sweet Teas, they did not go out for ice cream or watch movies in Air Conditioned living rooms, or enjoy summer camps, or even have the opportunity to complain about having to get back to a free education. Then again, there hope is not in a season. Is ours?
Their only hope is the gospel; our only hope is the gospel. Our summer mindset should be on God, our after summer mindset should be on God. We should rejoice in life and in the very next breath He allows us to take in. We ought to have zeal and excitement and passion to live for God’s glory every single waking minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year.
It’s hard to know this, that summer is nearly over. Refreshing is the truth… that… God is forever.