With summer around the corner, it won't be long until our routines are disrupted. School is out. The sun is out. There are vacations to take. Things get turned upside down for awhile. How do we keep our faith right side up in the midst of these temporary disruptions?

There is both a delight and a danger in disruption.

DELIGHT
The delight is that some of what gets disrupted is the steady stream of things to do that seem to control our lives. Kid's schedules. Work deadlines. Hectic commutes. Daily routines and seemingly monotonous existing. It is a delight when this stream is diverted by a vacation, or at least slows a bit to something a little more manageable. There is a delight when panting is replaced by deep breathing. When the shallow of quick glances at our spouses in the middle of dinner and laundry and going here and there are coupled together with some moments of gaze and reflection.

DANGER
But if we are not careful, when the pace slows, and options come open, a hole is made and we may not always fill that void with deep breathing, spending time with family, or other things that will rejuvinate us or prepare us for the inevitible uptick in the pace once the season of slower paces has past. Instead, we may rush to fill it with all the things that we simply didn't have time to get to before. The yard work. That room that needed painting. Cleaning the garage.

Those things are all good to do, but the danger is that if life was crazy before and our life and our families' lives suffered because of it, unless we are intentional about easing that kind of suffering, any delight will be short lived and a mirage. It will apear that we are resting or rejuvinating because we are doing something different. But different doesn't mean better. If you have one moldy loaf of wheat bread and you exchange it for another moldy loaf of white bread, it is different, but not better.

TRUE REST
Jesus is the only true source of lasting rest. And we encounter him and that rest in the Bible and through prayer, through fellowship with other believers, in serving others and in corporate worship together. And there is no greater delight than resting in Christ.

So in all the disruptions of this summer, don't let false and fleeting delights derail you from the path to the lasting delight: Jesus. Keep meeting with your life group members, even if informally. Continue serving. (Listen to Tim Quick's timely message on this subject, A New Perspective on our Sermon Audio page.) Continue attending weekend services. Make time to read your bible and pray. Not because this is what good Christians do, rather, do it because you need to.

Thinking,

Bryan