Mid-Summer Discipleship

The summer time, therefore, with its opportunities for enjoying God's great outdoors, is a special gift of our loving Father, and we His children should enjoy this gift. Our whole bearing and principles during the summer months must testify to the newness which comes with faith in Jesus Christ.

1925 Walter A. Maier Walther League Messenger

The Pic-Nic (1846) by Thomas Cole

The following article by Walter A. Maier is taken from the July 1925 issue of the Walther League Messenger, Volume XXXIII, Number 12, on pp. 650, 651, and 689.

In the last chapter of the Book of Acts we read of a viper that came out of the heat. In the chapters of our own book of acts we record the viperous temptations that come with the hot weather. How are we meeting these tests of character? How will we testify in the days of our vacation?

A woman who makes her living by entertaining summer boarders recently summarized the nature of the inquiries which she receives from prospective vacationists. She states: “People write and inquire about everything. Is there shade? Is there a well? Is there a playground? Are there mosquitoes? Is there malaria? May they drive, or row, or sail, or ride? Can they have rooms with the morning sunshine? Is the piano in tune? In fact, there is not a detail left to the imagination. They solicit the fullest knowledge, but nobody asks about church privileges.”

Probably Christian young people are more concerned about their spiritual life during the summer months and especially during the vacation time. And yet there is a danger that they, too, interpret the word “vacation” in the light of its related terms, and think that it means a vacating of the privileges and duties of Christian discipleship, or a vacuum of Christian faith and profession. The English use a better term for what we call a vacation. They call it a “holiday,” a term that suggests that these days of summer rest are “holy days” in which the body has an opportunity to recuperate and the soul to enjoy a series of quiet hours for spiritual growth.

It is in this way that Christian young men and young women must regard their recreations and their summers, and it is in this way, too, that their vacations become a necessary and helpful annual feature in their lives. We say this last advisedly, because every human body needs the recreation of physical rest. In one of his poems Robert Browning tells of two valuable camels, both of which loved their owner and served him willingly and gratefully. But one showed his devotion by eating as little as possible and by consuming only the very cheapest kind of food. But the other gave expression to his loyalty by eating only the best food and plenty of it. One day, while traveling across the desert, the first camel became weak, his strength failed, and he fell dead, leaving his burden as a prey to the desert thieves. But the other camel, fortified by his nourishing diet, stood the strain of the journey and passed safely through the desert with his burden. Wrapped up in this story is a truth of great importance for every Christian young man and young woman. We simply cannot attain to the highest ideals of our lives unless we know the value of rest and recreation. When Phoebe Carey, well-known New England authoress, lay on her deathbed, she told her physician with amazing frankness: “Doctor, you can do nothing for me. The reason I am dying is because for years I would never take a rest. Even when I went off into the country I always took my books and pen and worked.” We know that Jesus, in His busy career of saving souls, rested. At one occasion the blessed Savior told His disciples: “Come ye yourselves apart in a desert place and rest awhile.” It has been correctly stated: “Thousands and tens of thousands of the best brains and hearts of the pulpit, the bar, the medical office, and all of the Christian departments of life have simply killed themselves in their young manhood and womanhood because they would not obey Christ’s command and take a rest.”

The summer time, therefore, with its opportunities for enjoying God’s great outdoors, is a special gift of our loving Father, and we His children should enjoy this gift. He insists only that in the pleasures and recreations of the summer time we continue to give expressions to our Christian character and conviction. While we know that Christ’s religion does not encourage the dark-shrouded and depressing creed that bans all laughter, prohibits all innocent pleasures and condemns the enjoyments of God-granted gifts, we must remember that also in the summer months we must live and move and have our being in God.

Put into very plain terms this means that our whole bearing and principles during the summer months must testify to the newness which comes with faith in Jesus Christ. We ought to be able to tell a Christian young woman, for example, by her summer clothing, because a girl who knows the grace of her Lord, Jesus Christ, will never let the heat be an excuse for adopting dress styles that are hardly compatible with Christian modesty. Very directly, we mean conspicuously rolled stockings, immodestly cut sleeveless gowns, and decollete apparel which immediately suggests that brazen display of motion picture magazines and similar publications. A Christian young woman will not choose the most startling bathing suit that she can find; but she will be guided by all the modesty that is compatible with comfort and safety in bathing and swimming. She will not offer the scorching rays of the summer sun for an excuse to apply an extra coat of facial calcimine and rouge. No, by their wholesome appearance and by their upright and sincere bearing our Christian young people will let the world know that they belong to Christ also in the summer months.

Similarly, there must be a direct evidence of Christian discipleship in summer amusements and pastimes. A Christian young man, to discuss this side of the question, will not use the summer months as a period of moral relaxation, during which he may vacate his Christian principles. He will not be found in the public dance halls of our summer resorts where, often without a formal introduction, young men and young women are locked in embraces which are directly contrary, not only to the requirements of God’s holy law, but also to the very first requirements of ordinary decency. He will not take part in those picnics, outings, and week-end parties that are planned by people who have no connection with the church and who are opposed to its requirements. But while he seeks to avoid all temptations that may beset him, he will enjoy thoroughly and in an unreserved manner the pleasures which the summer time offers through recreation and through the association with Christian friends.

Of course, mid-summer discipleship cannot be promoted without serious conflict. The devil works overtime and his forces labor in double shifts during the hot weather to make young people, especially, unmindful of their Christian character and to bring them to a destructive fall. And what powerful allies he has! We think of the secrecy and seclusion which the automobile offers; we think of the intimacies which are not only permitted but which are also endorsed and considered quite the natural thing at many of our “parties”; we think of the canoeing trips, and similar excuses which are offered to keep young people away from their homes until the wee hours of the morning; we think of all the freedom and the lack of restraint and the absence of the home influence which so often characterizes the vacation weeks of young people when they leave their parents and travel many miles to summer resorts where they are not known and where they are thrown together with low-principaled young men and young women; and, recalling that in the last chapter of the Book of Acts we read of the viper that came out of the heat, we remember that in our own book of acts there are viperous temptations of especial force that come with the hot weather.

This test of character will be met - and the evidence of Christian discipleship will be shown - by a pronounced devotion to our faith and to our church during the hot weather. We will not discourage our pastor by making him preach to empty pews. If, occasionally, we are placed in such circumstances that we cannot attend church, we will set aside a quiet hour for devotional purposes. And if we travel extensively we will take our church annual with us, so that we may arrange our Sunday stops for such places where we may worship in a church of our faith. If we leave home, we will take our Bible and our devotional books with the vacation paraphernalia. And remembering that the devil never takes a vacation, we will not feed our bodies and starve our souls, but we will commune with our God daily and repeatedly through the privilege of prayer. In this way our Christianity will be strengthened even through the heat of mid-summer and we will be ready for the work of the fall, refreshed in body and soul.

W. A. M.