A Season For Reflection – Sunday, August 01, 1982
Summer is an ideal season for mental, emotional and spiritual tune-ups. Just as a finely tuned engine needs adjustments to run most efficiently, so do our lives run more efficiently if we take time for needed adjustments and improvements.
During the course of a year, habit often dulls the edge of observation. Our actions become routine and our behavior patterns so close to us that our angle of vision no longer provides an accurate perspective on ourselves.
That’s why vacations, weekend trips, overnight campouts and other summer activities with our families help us to see ourselves more clearly. We begin to take a fresh and careful look at ourselves. And in a few days, these summer breaks from our daily routines, regardless of their length, can often tell us more about ourselves and the areas in which we need improvement than months of self-examination at home.
Summer evenings also provide a reflective opportunity to get to know ourselves better. As we watch the beauty and order of nature around us, we realize that proper self-management is a great virtue…that it leads to personal pride which is a great motivator. We realize that self-management through self-discipline develops Integrity and the ability to be more honest with God, with our families, and with our friends.
And as we help a neighbor with a summer project, we understand what the Savior meant when he said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”1 That advice is not mere moralizing, but an absolute psychological law for maintaining mental and emotional health.
Finally, we would suggest that there is no better season than summer for fine-tuning ourselves spiritually, because we often tend to let our commitment and enthusiasm for religious matters wither in the summer fun. As C. S. Lewis has suggested, Satan undermines our spirituality by using our summer desires to get us away from religion.
So summer is a time to keep our religious guard up and strengthen ourselves and our families spirituality…a time to remember that the rewards and blessings offered by the Lord are more important than all the world’s pleasures.
In fact, this is a good time to renew our dedication to Him who gave us all our seasons.
1 New Testament, Acts 20:35
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August 01, 1982
Broadcast Number 2,763