This has been a tough summer.  Summer is a wonderful time to play in the water, but it is a miserable time to fight fires.  This summer I’ve felt more like a firefighter with a garden hose. 

In the last few months my daughter has needed a new transmission in her car, our pool pump has gone out, my son’s car needed repairs, and my wife’s car needed replacement.  Add to that a large emergency room bill for another son, the annual summer tax and insurance bills that come due, and a less then stellar year for our company, and my home equity line of credit keeps getting deeper and deeper.

Then of course there’s the drought.  Over 30 days of triple digit heat with no measurable rain in the last few months have left my lawn a beautiful earthy russet color and our pond as dry as the Sahara Desert. Our greater concern though is if our well goes dry.  As the only source of water for our home, things could get pretty interesting … and it isn’t even August yet!

To add insult to injury, we have Washington threatening to tank our economy just as it is starting to recover.  Actually, we really can’t blame Washington.  We are the ones who wanted it all and I fear the bill is finally coming due.  Even if we avert a government default on our loans this week, sooner or later the piper needs to be paid. 

So where does that leave faith?  Do we really believe God is going to rescue us? Should we believe he is going to rescue us, and what if he doesn’t?  What if the bills keep rising and the water level keeps falling.  What if the greatest nation on earth becomes the greatest failure in the history of the earth?  What if … what if … what if …?  Is that really what our faith boils down to is believing the ‘what if’s’ won’t affect us?  Or is it that faith is meant to be something deeper, more spiritual, something that transcends the ‘what if’s’ of life?

I don’t know what the rest of this summer, this year, or any of my life for that matter is going to bring.  Paul tells us to ‘not be anxious about anything’ (Philippians 4:6a).  I honestly don’t know how to do that.  I’m an anxious person. But I do know how to do his next suggestion: ‘but in everything, with prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.’ (v6b). As I do that part (my part) then he promises that ‘the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus’ (v7).

That’s what I really need.  More than money, more than rain, more than economic stability, I need my heart and my mind guarded in Christ, for it is my heart and my mind that are attacked as all the others fail.  Paul doesn’t promise that our prayers will change the situations around us; he promises that our prayers will change us. 

With that in mind then, maybe this summer isn’t such a loss after all.  Maybe … this summer is just what I needed.

To the King,

David