Summer Missions 08- Pt. 1
Regrettably, ASGF does not have any summer missions trips going outside of our local community this summer (if anyone has a heart to remedy this, please answer the call). While this is not desirable and we would like to see this change in the future I want to remind us that we do have a mission here at home.
This post is the first in a series intended to challenge us to make our daily lives and outings missions trips of sorts.
As we seek to promote God’s mission in our communities this summer we must understand that our mission is to be an overflow of our own joy in God. The Girltalk bloggers recently wrote the following post encouraging readers to consider how they use and view their summer activities. If this is our perspective we will be prepared, compelled, and overflowing with our mission of spreading the glorious gospel of Christ.
A final word on summer, from John Piper: “Don’t let summer make your soul shrivel.”
The danger with all our summertime ideas (even the more ‘spiritual’ ones) is that we would enjoy or pursue them to the neglect of God himself.
“Flight from him into Christless leisure makes the soul parched” warns Piper. “At first it may feel like freedom and fun to skimp on prayer and neglect the Word, but then we pay: shallowness, powerlessness, vulnerability to sin, preoccupation with trifles, superficial relationships, and a frightening loss of interest in worship and the things of the Spirit.”
The solution to a shallow summer? “If then you have been raised up with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col. 3:1-2, RSV).
Remember that, “Jesus Christ is the refreshing center of summer. He is preeminent in all things (Col. 1:18), including vacations, picnics, softball, long walks, and cookouts [and square foot gardens, pinnebrød, and popsicle trees].”
Or, said another way: “The summer sun is a mere pointer to the sun that will be: the glory of God. Summer is for seeing and showing that.”
Heavenly Father, may we not be guilty of “Christless leisure” but may we “see” and “show” your glory in all we do this summer. Amen.