A Prayer to Welcome Summer - Your Daily Prayer - June 23

A Prayer to Welcome Summer
By Lynette Kittle

Bible Reading:
“When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.” - Luke 21:30

Listen or Read Below:

After a cold, harsh winter filled with blowing blizzards and ice storms, followed by a volatile spring of roaring tornadoes and severe weather outbreaks, summer is usually a welcome season, ushering in milder skies after the ever-changing weather patterns that often come before it.

Welcome are summer’s telltale signs: longer daylight hours, warmer days and nights, and grasses, trees, and bushes budding with new leaves and flowers, leading the way to the hope of summer’s promise.

Through our prayers, we can purposefully welcome summer by embracing God’s promises.

No matter what is going on in the world, God promises summer is coming; a word we can hold onto when the times, skies, and temperatures seem to tell us otherwise.

As Genesis 8:22 explains, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

The gracious words of the hymn “For the Beauty of the Earth,” written in 1864 by Folliott Sandford Pierpoint, help lead us in opening our hearts to summer’s promises:

“For the beauty of the earth, for the glory of the skies,

for the love which from our birth over and around us lies.”

Psalm 74:17 describes how, “It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; You made both summer and winter.”

Summer’s beginning offers us the promise of new growth that brings fruitfulness to our lives, as Leviticus 26:4 describes: “I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.”

After winter’s bareness and spring’s fury, we have the slow-paced, peaceful promise of new growth, watching day-by-day as blossoms and buds begin growing and turning into nourishing fruits and vegetables. As God has declared, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens,” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

Psalm 65:9 explains that God ordains summer’s promises to be fulfilled: “You care for the land and water it; You enrich it abundantly. The streams of God are filled with water to provide the people with grain, for so You have ordained it.”

God’s creation endures for years. Everything He has set in motion continues against all odds and despite the times, regardless of droughts, fires, floods, and natural and man-made disasters of all kinds, because He controls the seasons and decides the days and times, being eternally faithful to His word.

We are assured in Isaiah 55:10-11, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Let’s Pray:

Dear Father,

Today, we welcome summer with Your promises of growth and abundance for the coming months.

We praise You for Your faithfulness in watering, cultivating, and causing growth in the plants, fields, and trees on the earth and in our lives.

Help us, daily, to see in the upcoming months how it’s Your hand graciously and generously providing for and meeting our daily needs. Remind us of Your faithful promises ordained for summer’s bounty.

Because we believe You are in control of the seasons, let Your name be praised around the world You created and throughout the summer months ahead.

Fill our hearts, O Lord, to the full and overflowing with gratefulness for You and Your loving care over our land and lives.

Draw us close to Your heart and reveal Your vision for the coming summer months.

In Jesus’ name, 

Amen.

Discuss today’s devotional with others in the Your Daily Prayer thread on the Crosswalk Forum.

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Mary Spickelmier

Lynette Kittle is married with four daughters. She enjoys writing about faith, marriage, parenting, relationships, and life. Her writing has been published by Focus on the Family, Decision, Today’s Christian Woman, kirkcameron.com, Ungrind.org, StartMarriageRight.com, and more. She has a M.A. in Communication from Regent University and serves as associate producer for Soul Check TV.

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