Summer Spiritual Season

 Summer is a time of continued growth and renewal, rest and re-creation, and communion.  It is generally the warmest season of the year with the longest days. Plants continue to grow, flowers continue to blossom, and various kinds of fruits and vegetables continue to be harvested throughout this time.

In some places, this growth is accompanied by death, for example, in Northern California, where I live, the grasses die and dry up due to the lack of water and increasing heat.  The well-rooted trees that inhabit these grasslands, however, remain green and full of life, giving much needed respite to the overheated passerby.

From a human perspective, Summer is generally the main time of year (because of school closures and warm weather) for us to vacation, celebrate, and enjoy the world around us.  It is often a time of rejoicing, rest, and re-connection, as we rest from our labors and as we enjoy the company of our friends and family.

The Summer Spiritual Season

Like the natural season of Summer, the Summer spiritual season is a continued time of growth and renewal, rest, re-creation, and rejoicing.  At its core, its a season of communion with the Lord.  In the Summer season, there is a fuller flowering of the fruits we began to see arise in previous Spring and Winter season and there is a deep resting that occurs in the Lord.  From the outside, the Summer seasons may look a bit like the Winter or Spring seasons, but there are qualitative differences in the landscape of the soul in this season.

When we are in a Summer season, we experience a deeper kind of intimacy with God  – a kind of union or deep communion with Him.  We have a greater sense of rootedness in God’s love and thus we dwell in the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a deeper way than we previously have.  More and more of what we do overflows out of this place of love.

Sometimes, dwelling in this place of love leads us into a deeper place of restfulness in the Lord.  We may step back from our busy activities because our greatest desire at this time is to simply be with the Lord.  In these times, there may or may not be a plethora of “mountaintop” experiences with the Lord.  Some of us may experience what we might call mystical encounters with the Lord.  For others of us, nothing specular seems to be happening and our experience may look somewhat similar to a Winter season.

Yet, in this season there is a deeper resting in and intimacy with the Lord than in a Winter season.  There is a deeper sense of joy, love, and peace as we rest in God’s loving presence.  There is also a deeper sense of freedom because we have let a number of our false identities, idols, and disordered desires die and dry up.  Additionally, there is an outpouring of worship, praise, and celebration of God’s goodness, mercy, and love that comes from deep within our hearts and souls.  People who spend regular time with us notice the difference; our joy, love, and peace is simply contagious.

At other times, when we are dwelling in this place of love, we continue in a life of great fruitfulness and are as active as alway, but the nature of this fruitfulness is different than what we experience in a Spring season.  In a Spring season, our fruitfulness often flows out of a good desire to serve God and others and to glorify God’s name.  We often feel some obligation to steward our giftings well and to show our love for God.  There can also be a bit of a self-serving posture when we serve in this season.

In a Summer season, our fruitfulness flows out of of a place of deep communion with the Lord Himself.  We don’t feel compelled per se to serve God  and others as a way to show our love to God.  Nor do we work to do the “right” thing or to serve ourselves; we simply serve God and others because we can do nothing else.  Serving God and others is the natural overflow that occurs when we dwell in divine love.  Even when we are doing things for the Lord in a Summer season, we are more in a state of “being with the Lord” rather than “doing for the Lord”.

If I could provide an analogy that would distinguish between what is happening in the Spring and the Summer seasons, it would be this.  Spring is like the early days of a romance when two lovers are awakened to the beauty of the other.  Their senses and emotions are at a heightened state, and they work hard to show their love to their beloved.

Summer is like when a couple has been married for many years and are simply content to be with each other.  No great romantic gestures or emotional highs are needed.  The love and connection between the two runs deep and is indeed shown in many tangible ways.  What the two most desire, however, is simply to be with the beloved.

The Summer season is a wonderful season in the spiritual life, and like the Spring season, we might want to hold onto it forever, but it is often the case that God has more work to do in us, so we can expect to move in and out of Summer seasons throughout our lifetimes.