Summer Season

As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? --Psalm 42:1,2

Someone recently said to me that it looks like summer has been cancelled this year! This playful statement was a reference to the incessant rain and chilly temperatures that continue into spring season even as I write. And yet, we know that hot and dry summer days are soon to come. There is also a type of summer season in our lives of faith. Those spiritually dry times do exist. In ourselves, without our Lord we live a spiritually dry existence. Without God’s saving grace in Christ the soul remains a spiritual desert.

The book of Revelation paints a picture of our future as people of faith. We see God’s city with the river of the water of life flowing through it! Sinfully parched souls will ever need God’s refreshment. Revelation has often been referenced as a book of worship, a vision of our eternal future with our Lord who shepherds us forever. Here in life, he slakes our thirst in the rains of his righteousness that he alone can deliver. There in glory he refreshes forever!

A hunger and desire for the things of God is something the Lord alone creates within us, a desire to come and appear before him. Parched and cracked ground can do little for itself then drink in what it is given. Can we not come to drink of the water of his life in this season of faith? Psalm 42 expresses this longing for God, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” Where then do we encounter our God but in his word and worship as we gather in his name? The Large Catechism states that as the Lord’s children we are privileged to, “go joyfully to the Sacrament and receive refreshment, comfort, and strength.” In God’s word and worship, we come and are refreshed in faith as we long for the presence of our God in his eternal dwelling place!

During this summer season God calls us to gather and to receive. The Lord will send his refreshment to satisfy the weary soul. He alone can quench the thirst of his children with the rains of his grace as we gather in his name. Ah, Lord, shower it down! Let the living waters flow this day and always!

Pastor