Summer Love

You’ve no doubt had one- the summer love. Maybe your intentions were pure, that “after the boys of summer have gone” that love would last longer than a single season. Chances are however, that your summer love was short lived. “Summer lovin’ happens so fast.”

Summer love aches, yet lingers in our memories. Whatever the summer activity may have been- swimming, boating, camping, laying on the beach, we all look back with sentimentality. It’s easy to forget the heartache when you can remember the sunshine. It’s easy to remember the night under the stars and forget the hangover. We can reflect fondly on the fishing trip. Whether or not we caught anything has long since been forgotten.

“Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.” (Ps 25:7)

Why do we always remember the ‘best of times’ and forget the ‘worst of times’?


What is it about summer that sticks in our memory?

While our memories deceive us, we are tricked into thinking about what might have been. It’s an easy trap to keep us from being grateful for what is. The memory of spending time on my friend’s boat only reminds me that I don’t have one of my own. The summer love has long since gone. “I try not to think about what might have been, ‘cause that was then, and we have taken different roads.”

“These things I remember
as I pour out my soul;
how I used to… “(Ps 42:4)

Do you ever long for the “good old days”? Why?

But what is it about those memories that hang on forever in our minds? The timing must be perfect. Not all summer loves are remembered with fondness. There’s something about a particular time, a particular place that hits during a transformation period in our lives. The journeys from childhood to adolescence and from adolescence to adulthood are special moments. Personally, the soundtrack of my life consists mainly of songs from those periods. Maybe we are most impressionable at those times, making us more vulnerable to the summer love.

I think the love story we have with our Creator is similar. Though “he is not far from each one of us” there are times and places where our hearts are more sensitive and receptive to Him.

“…he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:26-27)

How old were you when you reached out and found a relationship with God?


What transformational period was going on in your life at the time (college, marriage, etc)?

There is no greater love story than that between God and his people. So much so that marriage is used as an illustration (some would say a sacrament) of the relationship between God and his people and Jesus and his Church. In fact, the Bible begins with a marriage (Genesis 2) and ends with a marriage (Revelation 19-21). (thanks to John and Staci Eldredge’s Love and War for pointing that out!) But unlike the summer love, God’s love endures forever.

“Oh Lord, where is your former great love,
which in your faithfulness you swore to David?” (Psalm 89:49)

“The word of the LORD came to me…
‘I remember the devotion of your youth,
how as a bride you loved me
and followed me through the desert,
through a land not sown.’ “ (Jeremiah 2:1-2)

“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.“ (Deuteronomy 7:9)

Are you still madly in love with God? Were you ever?

Summer love is fleeting. So are our lives. “Show me, O LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.” (Psalm 39:4) So if you find yourself this season longing for a love that will last, look to God, for “God is love” (1 John 4:16) Seek Him and you will find Him.

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” (Proverbs 8:17)

Today continues this summer’s ‘virtual small group’ (VSG in the tags). I hope you come back as I take this season to reflect on the wonders of God’s creation, share vacation stories, etc, with the prayer that we come out of this season closer to God than how we came into it.