The dog days are ahead – that time in the Major League Baseball season when the summer heat is sapping strength and depleting a player’s ability to recover. Ever felt that way spiritually? When your spiritual life wilts, your soul feels barren, there are no spiritual reserves, and the tank is empty? I have! You might be in your spiritual dog days at the moment.
What can we do to recover lost vigor? I'll share a couple of practices that will revive and refresh our souls if we apply them with God’s help.
*Ask God daily to turn your heart toward him in renewed hunger and zeal (Psalm 119:36, 18; 90:14; 86:11). Make it your evening prayer for the next day – whisper to God throughout the day: Father, renew my heart by drawing me to you… make me long for you. Ask him now. God delights to answer our IOUS – incline, open, unite, and satisfy my heart with your truth and presence. Sometimes we have to strive with our own hearts in prayer – it is the fight of and for vital faith and heart-felt joy.
*Read and think carefully and consistently through God’s word – soak yourself in his truth a paragraph or chapter at a time. Here are some applicatory questions by which to help us think through God’s word in his presence (I am indebted to J. I. Packer for these suggestions in his excellent book, Rediscovering Holiness):
- What does this passage tell me about God – his holiness, grace, power, rule, etc.?
- What does this passage tell me about myself – my conduct, character, attitudes, temperamental struggles, and fight with my flesh, a fallen culture, and the devil?
- What does this passage tell me about my life today – tasks, opportunities, temptations, challenges?
- How does God bring his grace to bear on my life in this or these texts – God is the hero of every passage in some way... not me, nor any other fallen son of Adam. So where does God show his grace and do what we are incapable of doing?
Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? (Psalm 85:6)
