Beating The Summertime Slump

It’s common for an entire baseball team to go into a slump during a season. Nothing seems to work right—the bats feel heavy and the gloves develop big holes in them! Summertime can be a time for Christians to go into spiritual slumps too.

When the kids are excited to be back in school, our priorities can need to be refocused. Maybe your regular Bible study has taken some time off. How do these changes affect your spiritual disciplines?

Did you allow the rattling of your routines to shake your prayer life? Did trips to the pool, movies, or Six Flags replace time reading the Bible? Has your church attendance adjusted according to the weekend weather report?

When families go on vacation, sometimes they go on a spiritual vacation as well! While warmer weather can be a great time for needed time off, we must guard the ways that vacations affect our walks with God. Spiritual vacations are not options for Christians.

I am not trying to create rules that go beyond the pages of the Bible (that’s a danger called legalism). It is fair, however, to ask where your heart is this summer. If you’re passionate about your relationship with God, you won’t be checking into hotels at the beach and leaving God at home! Is the sunshine melting your heart for God, like an ice cream cone? Or, are you staying faithful through the temptations to slip spiritually? Here are a few suggestions for making your summer a spiritual splash instead of a slump.

1) Keep up the Bible reading. Try something new if the Bible seems dry. Maybe you could read a short book in the Bible through every day for a week. Have you ever read through the Gospels or the book of Acts looking for something in particular, like early church evangelism? There are many ways to freshen your reading of the Bible, but there is no replacement for the spiritual passion and growth Bible reading produces.

1 Peter 2:2 says, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in resect to your salvation.” While some days seem like a time to sleep-in, it’s unwise to forget about breakfast altogether. My kids all slept a lot when they were babies, but they did not miss meals. They grew like weeds too. The Bible is a spiritual feast for a Christian’s soul.

What’s it going to take to get you to read the Word of God? Be proactive! Make a plan. Make a time and a place. Make it happen!

2) Stay regular in church. It does not take much to keep some families from church on Sundays. The least little reason for them to be elsewhere is reason enough. If you are in the summertime slump, your lack of time worshipping, encouraging, and delighting in the preaching of God’s Word with other believers could be contributing. If you don’t think you’re in a slump, but church as a priority is slipping, beware!

Of course we are commanded to be active members of a local church family. Hebrews 10:25 says, “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” God is not trying to mess up a Sunday fun day, He commands us to assemble because we need to be with our church family.

Our hearts are like modeling clay. If you leave it out in the sun, it becomes as hard as a rock. I remember having to put water on art projects in school to make the clay moldable again. Does that sound like Hebrews 3:13 to you? “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

Don’t let the August sunshine bake your hearts! Get refreshed by getting together with your church family. Come with a heart to encourage someone else. Come with a heart to hear from God as His Word is proclaimed.

3) Pray, pray, pray! No one wants you to stop slumping more than God. You may be able to argue about who cheers the most for the Braves to stay on the winning path, but there is no question that it is God who most zealously cherishes your Christian zeal.

When you feel like you’re getting off track spiritually—pray. Ask God to keep you spiritually strong. When you know you are in a slump—pray. Ask God to bring you out quickly. When you a faithfully walking with God—pray. As the hymn says, it was grace that brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home. God is willing and able to respond to your prayers for His grace!

God says, “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17). It seems to me that April, May, and June qualify as times we need to be praying! Find a Christian friend that you can pray with, and that will remind you to be praying some every day. Prayer is our lifeline to God.

I love the summer. But by God’s grace, I love God more than the season. I am thankful for the forgiveness that He, through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, pours out on me. He will forgive you if you have had a rough spiritual summer so far. After you confess your sin, turn up your spiritual disciplines a notch. These are the means God uses to get us through all parts of the year. Even though some seasons attack our regular routines, fight to discipline yourself for godliness as you prepare to beat the heat (1 Timothy 4:7, 8).