Summer Break!

My young friend,

It’s been way to long since we’ve seen you and your family! But I am still praying for you. You are not forgotten. And neither is the fact that the summer is about to be upon us!!!

Ah yes … freedom! Free time! Late nights and late mornings! Swimming! Oh yeah … and complaining about being bored!

Your life is WAY different than mine so I can only imagine how you feel about your summers. I went to a public school where parents had free babysitting for most of the year but where they released us back into our parents trembling arms for 3 nerve-racking months. As I got older I was able to fill that time with serving at camp and learning while I had adventures on SBC trips, but even with all that diversion I remember complaining about being bored. I wanted something to do.

I think that impulse was a good one. We are not meant to be sitting around doing nothing. And contrary to the collective belief of modern teenagers we are not meant to be playing and getting entertained all day every day. God meant us to be productive people.

I don’t know what your summers look like. I don’t know how much free time you actually have but my guess is that you probably have more than you do during the rest of the year.

The childish response to this additional free time would be to use it frivolously and to wait passively for your parents to tell you what you need to do to fill that time. Never forget that Adam’s blood courses through your covenantal veins and that means, among other things, that you will have a
natural bend in the direction of passivity and laziness. Guard yourself against that. Don’t waste the precious time that God has given you. And don’t wait to be told what to do. Come up with a plan. Know what you are going to do each day. If your day is to empty look for productive ways to please God in that day. Look for ways to serve. Practice getting obligations done before leisure and fun. That in itself is a hugely valuable practice to inculcate into the man you are becoming.

Idle time is also a huge danger when it comes to sins other than laziness too. When our minds and hands are not being applied to productive tasks but are sitting idle they will naturally gravitate toward places they should not go. Make sure that your mind is occupied with thoughts that will glorify God. Stay consistent in your devotions without needing to be told to do so by your mother. Seek out God each day in his word and prayer. If you find yourself with some time on your hands and you can’t think of anything else to do, don’t hesitate to grab your bible and snatch a few extra minutes with your God. Practice the art of praying ceaselessly. If you are sitting about and catch your mind wandering or just spacing out take a few minutes to pray.

Be careful to guard yourself against allowing idle time to be a context for you to feed lust. If you catch your mind wandering when you are not engaging it in some fruitful thinking then resolve now to cast that thought out of your mind immediately. The biblical response to the invitation of lust is simple: FLEE.  I don’t know where you are in your battle with lust, but even if this has not become a serious point of battle for you, you cannot let your guard down. When we get lazy in our thinking that is precisely when our lives of purity start to get sloppy and before we know it we are burdened with sin we never thought we’d have to deal with.

And to return to a previous topic that we have discussed be on your guard for an increase in situations in which you will be tempted to wag that tongue of yours at times and in directions that it ought not to be wagged. Without school to occupy your thinking and talking, and with a greater proximity to your family, you will undoubtedly be challenged with temptations of the tongue the solution to which is most often simply a closed mouth. A good rule of thumb: say only that which is edifying.

Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you soon!

In Christ,

Dave Gregg