Summer is the glorious and magical time each year when there’s no school, the days are longer, there are fewer obligatory scheduled events, and you get to swim and get a tan.  What’s not to love?

Summer is also a great time to focus more on your relationship with the Lord.  Going to church camp, going on retreats, and having more free time are all great for spiritual growth.

One of the most frustrating things to me was that every summer, I would have these incredible mountain-top experiences with the Lord, and didn’t really know what to do to maintain the closeness with the Lord that I felt.  It seemed like as soon as I started back to school, all of the summer emotional highs had cooled and I was left scraping to find time to spend with the Lord.

Experiencing those incredible mountain-top moments with God is wonderful.  Some of the biggest turning points in my life occurred during those moments.  However, it’s easy to get addicted to those experiences.  Learning how to spend time with the Lord, consistently and faithfully, will totally revolutionize your relationship with the Lord.  Learning how to wait before the Lord, seek Him on a daily basis, and trust Him with your daily decisions creates a spiritual depth and unwavering foundation for the rest of your life in Christ.

When it comes to learning to grow in your relationship with the Lord, getting into a pattern is really important.  The more consistent you are in spending quiet time with the Lord, the easier it becomes to make that a big part of your daily life.  The big, emotional experiences at camps and conventions become more of a continuation of what’s already been happening in your life.

Over the next few days, I’d like to talk about some really practical ways to learn how to spend time with the Lord, and how to make it worthwhile and maybe even enjoyable.